Kurohana
by Shiranami
Summary: Years of war have worn down the shinobi world and it's inhabitants to the core, and Haruno Sakura has become a tragic example. Story about redemption. M for language and dark themes. Pairings: Saku/Shika.
1. Chapter 1 : Kusubana

She had been as special once. Nothing like those inbred dandelions that went a-spawning every time the wind picked up. Unlike them, she had never been considered a weed. She had never been thought of as some blight upon the living, breathing landscape of blooms, something to be removed or sheared down to the roots to make way for other more important vines.

She _was_ the important vine.

There was a time she had considered herself to be perfect. Miraculous even, maybe even more so than Mother Nature's two legged children. Where as Human's clumsy beginnings began in stumbles, Hana's start had grown in leaps and bounds as quickly and easily as her beautiful dark-blue petals. All she had to do was stretch out her leaves to graze the soft, sweet streams of sunlight that flowed down around her like rain. Essentially, the world during her infancy had been simple: eat, sleep, eat, and sleep again.

Rinse and repeat. Simplicity in it's simplest form.

Then the fragrance of the hills changed. Overnight, the wind grew rank and foul with the smell of rot and decay leaking down from every mountain and orchard Hana had once called neighbor and friend. Something was wrong, and while Hana couldn't quite understand it, she could certainly _feel_ it.

The growth of pain, loss, and despair mingled with the waning strands of hope that hobbled along side them. It was all there, swirling in the air like curls of shredded ribbon, each scent an emotion, a word in the all but invisible language of nature.

And Nature was _screaming_.

Life was wounded, limping, trying to stay out of the way of a much larger predator that had moved in without warning. And Hana, like many others, was bleeding but still breathing. Even if it was only barely.

By the time the end found it's way around to her, Hana was more than ready for it. She didn't scream, not like the rest of nature did. Briefly, she tried to remember what the sun had felt like, traveling along the sensitive surfaces of her fragile fronds. A memory, a faint glowing recollection of light, was all she was able to muster. Slowly, her petals folded up and her leaves curled in. The glucose in her veins dragged to a crawling flow, went still, and eventually solid.

Just like that, the world wasn't so simple anymore.


	2. Chapter 2 : Cold

Chapter 2 : Cold

"You look like death." Tsunade said without looking up from her papers. When she heard a snickering from the direction of her doorway she added, "–that's not a compliment."

The small female shinobi leaning against the wall gave a simple nod in apology, but said nothing else in her defense. The aging village leader sighed inaudibly, tsking herself for entertaining the hope she would ever be able to illicit more than the usual listlessness from the young solider silently warming the wall by her office door.

"Take off your mask, shinobi, there's no enemies here." Tsunade muttered coolly from beneath her graying golden hair, agitated that she would even have to mention such a thing to a former pupil. Their village was hidden away among the densest, darkest forests in the world, which was how it got it's name. Konoha, Village Hidden in the Leaves. Few enemies could find them the leafy haven without help, and if they got that far, there were the village shinobi to contend with.

_And the shinobi are fiercely protective of what is theirs…_Tsunade smiled to herself as she waited expectantly for the female shinobi before her to comply.

Instead of immediately obeying though, the black and grey clad shinobi cocked her head to the side, as though judging the seriousness of her Village Leader's request. Tsunade paused in her work and just stared, stern and cool at the two holes in the mask where the girl's eyes were hiding among the shadows.

"I'm not kidding, ninnin…" Tsunade hadn't seen the girl in several months, and it pained her to realize that she had almost forgotten what this particular solider looked like without their armor.

_There are people under there…_Tsunade reminded herself fiercely_…normal, average human beings…well, normal and average when they're not armed…_

There were two soft clicks, and the pale porcelain mask, painted to look like a falcon head, was dropped, swinging loose around the girl's neck. Tsunade exhaled, reading the look on her former pupil's face all too well. The young woman was different than she remembered–prematurely aged by the effects of war, with a cold hollow look to her soft sage colored eyes, and the odd air of repose offsetting her long lost tempestuous attitudes.

_Not much tempest left now…_Tsunade noted, slightly irritated with herself for the thought. Sakura's formerly delicate features were marred with scars and scrapes; small injuries that Tsunade knew were leftover signs of much larger ones that Sakura had never let her heal. Her petal pink hair had darkened drastically over the years, for reasons that the girl would still not reveal to her former sensei, and it was now a startling pink wine color, dark and rich, strange, exotic, and apparently entirely natural. Tsunade figured that it was just the way it was with the Haruno clan, something in their gene pool that made them go darker instead of gray or white with age and stress.

_And there's been plenty of that…_Sakura's charka, her life force, was barely a blip in the corner of Tsunade's senses, meaning that she had already probably healed a great deal of the damage before she arrived, just to avoid being sent to the hospital. The girl was probably masking her remaining reserves by habit, so as not to frighten anyone with the amounts she managed to store due to the tightly sealed reserves she maintained with the aid of several charka seals tattooed on her torso. Of course, the seals weren't just for storing charka, but only Tsunade, and her assistant Shizune knew that.

_You reduced her to this, wore her down to a thread with some stupid, relentless crusade for peace…_Tsunade chided herself…_What you really should have been trying to protect was her._

The dark tattoo visible on the young nin's right arm labeled her as Anbu, one of the Leader's few, but talented personal soldiers. A smaller mark on her forearm designated her as an "elite", but was often kept under athletic wraps as the title brought with it connotations of dark intelligence, icy resolve, and an unnerving lack of hesitation to do literally anything to see their orders thru to the vile, bitter end.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Sakura, like many of the other children of her generation, had been forced into adult hood via the violence and loss of her trade, which sadly, had become a necessity at present. The village survived off of the money they made from renting out their soldiers to those who could afford their highly skilled services. Most of the requests they received were for guards or escorting village dignitaries to and from some of the more politically dissident areas outside their thick, sturdy walls.

_Desperate times…_Tsunade told herself, reiterating the age-old mantra that the good of one had to be sacrificed for the good of many. But she could feel the shame building up in her gut again. Though she would never say it out loud, she felt she'd failed as a leader. The village had never seen more war and loss than under her leadership, and each generation that followed seemed to be dwindling down to almost nothing.

Looking up at Sakura, Tsunade felt the shame of her failure as a teacher, too. She'd trained her soldiers to move mountains only to turn around and ask them to immediately knock them down. The contradiction made her head spin, and she wasn't even drinking.

"You've forgotten your report." Tsunade said tersely, pretending to shuffle around some useless papers on her desk as she tried to avoid the young soldier's analytical gaze. The young girl had become almost as bad as General Ibiki, Head of Interrogation, in the way that she studied people.

Tsunade could just about feel Sakura breaking her down piece by jagged psyche piece, and sorting the information in her head. Tsunade herself remembered Ibiki's observation training. There were things to always look out for, unconscious actions that could tell you a person's entire life story in an instant: physical ticks, whether they look at the floor or at people when they're walking, their body language when approached by a stranger, et cetera. Tsunade could see all this and more going on behind the shinobi's pale green eyes. The young woman's mind truly was _fearfully_ and wonderfully made in the image of God.

_Or, the image of that other guy…_Tsunade tried in vain to hide the slight upward quirk of her lips. Leaders did not smile, she reminded herself coarsely. And they especially didn't laugh when their people were in emotional turmoil, economic ruin, and physical decay.

"Apologies, your Ladyship. The report was delivered to General Ibiki in accordance with your instructions prior to mission's start." The reply was brief, monotone, and direct. And if that wasn't the most professional 'F.U.' Tsunade had ever heard, then she didn't know what was.

"I don't care what I said before the mission," Tsunade snapped, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.

"I will request the report back from the General's office, immediately," Sakura pushed off the wall ready to leave, but Tsunade held up a hand to stop her.

"No," She interrupted, "It's fine. I'll get a copy later from one of the intelligence officers."

The leader's sudden overreaction seemed to surprise the shinobi, at least as much as a shinobi could be surprised, and the young woman stood, frozen mid-step halfway to the door. To Tsunade, it looked like the girl wanted to make a run for it.

_Kids these days…_Tsunade's fingers tabbed through a thick manila file on the desktop, looking for something useful to take her mind off of the much changed Sakura presently trying to escape from her office.

Tsunade had seen little of Sakura Haruno in the past year. The young woman had gone from one mission to another, sometimes without ever setting foot back in the village, allowing herself to be deployed and redeployed without leave. Strategists like Shikaku Nara, thought it rather pleasant to have a robot-type solider in the ranks, someone who would do what they were asked–no questions asked.

Tsunade knew better though. Running could only be sustained for so long, this she'd learned from experience. No one could outmaneuver their pain forever.

"I'm tired of chasing you," Tsunade said wearily, "I don't know how to help you. I want to, I just don't know how…"

The young woman was silent, but Tsunade could see rather than hear her breathing quicken.

_She must be nearly twenty-two now_, Tsunade did the math quietly in her head. The young woman was so far lost from her own sense of childhood that Tsunade had a hard time remembering how or who Sakura had truly been before. Had it really been seven years? It was true that the reconstruction of the village had taken some time (more of a work in progress, really), but how had a near decade passed without the Leader realizing it? How did her shinobi grow from bright young, hopeful little cadets to battle-worn warriors, bringing home spoils and trophies from a war they didn't even start?

"I'm getting too old for this," Tsunade grumbled, waving her hand at the door, "All I ask is that you at least consider cutting down the field work. It's not healthy. You need to rest. And if you won't take time, I'll _make_ you." Screw thinly veiled threats, Tsunade wanted blatantly obvious.

The shinobi merely replied with a slight bob of her head and returned to leaning back against the wall by the doorway like she had no where in particular to be. Sakura's father had been the exact same way. Strong, brief, efficient...

_Absolutely infuriating_…Tsunade kneaded the back of her neck with a pale, rough, wrinkled hand. She'd given away too much charka. One event, one act of terrorism that had happened almost a decade prior and she was still tired. They had been lost, political fanatics with utopian delusions they sought to bring about through destruction. Their leaders name, ironically, had been Pein. A bitter coincidence if ever she'd heard one.

When she had given away all that energy, that life force to sustain those who were wavering on the edge, she had no idea how old she would get, or how quickly. Granted, Tsunade knew she should probably be dead, but she still had a few tricks stashed up those long sleeves of hers. Looking at Sakura's stiff and stony posture, Tsunade knew she wasn't alone in that.

"Will that be all, your Ladyship?" Sakura's voice was ragged and soft, yet somehow still managed to retain some sort of clarity in the tone despite her obvious discomfort of being without her mask. Tsunade could see it on her face. She felt exposed without something to hide behind.

"Yes, that's all. For now," Tsunade warned, turning away from the young woman's burning glare. Sakura didn't like being watched, likely part of the reason she never worked in teams by choice anymore. Trying to hide as she did, it was almost like the Sakura was begging for the opportunity for Tsunade to look the other way, to forget what she once was and accept that whatever she had been was dead and buried alongside most of her friends.

_You're not dead yet…_Tsunade sunk back into her chair, tired from the short, trying debriefing, and irritated at her own inability to block it's effect on her. She had hoped for so long that all she would have to do to bring Sakura back would be to talk to her, a few simple words and the deep green eyes she had once thought so bright would burst to life again.

But they hadn't.

There in the silence and solitude of her office, that Tsunade broke. Tears she had long been saving rolled out and down onto the floor like a great flood, dripping onto the sleeves and soaking the front of her robes.

The cost that she, Sakura, and the rest of the shinobi had paid for the little precious peace they had attained for the moment just didn't seem fair. It was an unbalanced equation, one in which more was given than was ever received.

_Too much_…the withering Leader thought…_far, far too much._


	3. Chapter 3 : Akiri-san

Hey! Thanks for reading! Special thank you to Slaughnite for the amazing review! Not sure that updates will be this frequent, but I'm stressed, so we'll see. This story is a good vent.

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Chapter 3 : Akiri-san

The moment Sakura placed her mask back on her face, she felt she could breathe again. It seemed unnatural to be without her mask, and she didn't much like the times when she was forced to take it off in front of others. Mostly, Tsunade had left the habit alone in the past, knowing how Sakura felt about being seen. She supposed everyone, even the Hokage, had their off days.

It seemed, to Sakura, as though her former sensei's eyes were always searching and dissecting her–looking for _something_ they couldn't seem to find anymore. It made Sakura feel like a ticking time bomb. Something dangerous and unpredictable, that everyone seemed to think needed just one little push to explode.

Tsunade had been showing signs of doubt in Sakura's abilities and ranking in increasing intesity over the past year. After all the training and all the hard work Sakura had endured the Hokage sometimes still referred to her with a childish honorific, even in front of higher ranking officers and shinobi of equivalent standing. It was insulting, even if Tsunade didn't mean anything by it. It was things like this which caused Sakura to suspsect that Tsunade's release of her rebirth technique years before was eating away at _more_ than just her good looks.

_Poor old baa-chan_…Sakura smiled a little beneath her mask, recalling the image of a small, blonde boy who had the audacity to formerly refer to the Hokage as 'Granny'. God, Sakura _missed_ that. It was just one of many things that she had long given up on ever finding again.

_Time catches up to us all…_Sakura mentally surveyed the bandages she wore over the top of her left thigh, glad for once that she'd actually remembered to bring spares. The ones she had been wearing for the mission had been ruined. So soaked in blood that it was a wonder she still had any of her own. She hadn't wanted to alarm anyone, least of all Tsunade. Everyone knew that alarming the Hokage got you sent to the hospital, and Sakura couldn't have that.

_They would see too much, find out more than they needed too…_Like about the numerous injuries she had never cared to report, opting instead for the painful natural methods of healing just to avoid the side effects of the medications.

She couldn't have her brain clouded by chemicals and haze. It was the medical equivalent of paralysis for a shinobi…and she had told herself she would never be so helpless again. If she had to go through a little pain to keep her thoughts and chakra clear–she'd do it.

That sort of pain, after all, was nothing compared to heartbreak.

So Sakura had stopped outside the village that morning to clean up and change the bandages on her leg and arms. The mission had been a slightly more complicated than anticipated. She'd gained more injuries than she had estimated for, leading to unexpectedly large loss of bodily fluids and medical supplies towards the end. She supposed she was lucky though. Having been forced to perform psuedo-reconstructive surgery on her right hand in the field the night before–which was apparently very hard to do without making at least _a little_ mess–she knew she should be grateful to even have most of her fingers at this point.

Sakura had shredded an old shirt to create the illusion of fresh wrappings. A fraudulent feat for which she was rather proud at the moment. Tsunade hadn't noticed they weren't standard issue bandages, so she'd avoided being ordered to the hospital, at least this time. Now, she could go tend to her wounds in peace–or pieces, as it were.

As Sakura started a slow, steady pace towards the main exit of Konoha's operational head-quarters (once the old school), she found herself taking a shortcut through the long wide corridors of the Intelligence department, simply to see who was still alive. It seemed, to Sakura at least, that every time she came back from a mission, someone else had died or gone missing with their picture tacked up on the old bulletin board outside Ibiki's office.

Sakura glanced lazily at it as she passed.

_Same as always, no one new…_She didn't see Kakashi's picture, which was one she was always expecting to see for some reason, considering his age and general lack of self-preservation.

_Geuss the old man is still alive…_Sakura hummed curiously, glancing briefly over pictures. She was tryng, with little success, to ignore the older images, but her eyes always seemed to gravitate in that general direction towards the bottom of the board. It was known as "Ghost row" to the newer shinobi, and those too young to know anybody on it. They were the images of those who had been missing and lost for so long that they merely had yet to be confirmed dead in 'Absentenia'.

_Death assumed due to absence…_Sakura felt her eyes drawn to two yellowed photographs in the middle, one of a tall, dark-haired youth, and the other a drawn likeness of the former Kyubbi-vessel. Both images had been posted several years apart, but they still showed the likeness of each shinobi to be no more than about fifteen-years-old.

_Too bad we're not all as lucky as the old-man…_Sakura moved on past the board. There were more shinobi all around her now, littering the hallways like spiders gathering in dark corridors, flowing in and out of planning meetings and conference rooms like the doors themselves were nests, and the shinobi just an endless multitude of drones.

"Akiri-san!" A small voice cried.

Sakura paused, turning back a little at the sound of the name, unsurprised, and somewhat amused by the sparkling excitement in the young Genin running up behind her. The nick-name, which some of the younger Genin had come up with, had something to do with Jasmine and blossoms–though Sakura didn't know what any of that had to do with her. It'd seemed that ever since she'd made the bingo books a few years back, she'd never been able to get any peace from the small groups of admiring chibi-ninja that sprouted up out of the academy like dandelions.

Personally, Sakura blamed Yamanaka-Sensei and her big mouth for all the trouble. If the busty, blonde girl had kept any of the information Sakura actually let slip about her earlier missions to herself (like she was suppose to)–and not told every single student in her class–Sakura was sure she would have been able to walk by the academy without any threats to her rapidly shrinking personal space by awe-inspired children.

"Akiri-san!" The brown-eyed genin girl had a single metal senbon holding up her dark brown hair. Its ornate etchings told Sakura that the girl was from one of the older shinobi families, one of the few clans that hadn't been wiped out by years of losing their best and brightest members. The little girl stood nervous before her, seemingly at a loss for words as she shifted from one foot to another, gently expelling the tiniest bit of chakra to keep herself balanced. The shinobi in the hall didn't notice the small, artful use of energy, but Sakura did.

_Kids these days…_Sakura nodded to the girl, acknowledging her exuberant greeting silently. Some of the shinobi in the hallway chuckled.

The little genin blushed, turning a bright scarlet in embarrassment as the other shinobi gave her curious and somewhat humorous looks. Sakura bent down to look her in the eye.

"What is your name?"

"Hana Ame." The girl replied stiffly, automatically.

"If you are aiming for skill in weapons like the senbon you carry, you should go see Kengeki Touji-san. She never misses." Sakura whispered.

Hana's eyes lit up like new year at Sakura's words.

"Ari…arigato!" Hana bowed several times to many, so elated at any sign of attention from her heroine that she nearly bumped into a Chunin girl who was staring in awe at Sakura from behind her. Sakura watched the Genin related what Sakura had said to the Chunin, who appeared to be a friend, and smirked quietly to herself as they rushed off to find Tenten. The weapon's mistress was probably at the training grounds, but Sakura didn't think to tell that to the young ninja. They would find her eventually, and on their own. Tenten loved new protégés, especially young female ninja, for her teams, and she had trained almost six now. She was single-handedly determined to even out the proportion of males and females in the Anbu ranks, and she believed in starting from the ground up.

"You really shouldn't do that to them." A voice groaned behind her.

Sakura snickered inwardly, imagining the speaker stretching out his arms, cracking his neck, and yawning as he delivered his opinion without any apparent interest in it's effect. "Last time you sent me one of those starry eyed little fan-kids, I had to practically chew my arm off to get out of the building."

"I hear you're training him now." Sakura said.

"Meh, he wouldn't let go of me until I promised too. Bothersome little _rhunt_." Shikamaru snickered. From the way he laughed Sakura could tell that the boy was probably a lot _less_ bothersome than his new sensei would ever let on.

Shikamaru stepped up beside her then, glancing at her mask and uniform, likely reaching his own conclusions about the outcome of the mission she'd just returned from.

"Did you talk to Tsunade?" He asked. Sakura gave a curt nod, but didn't care to elaborate, deeming most of the discussion as classified.

"Anything I should know about?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. Sakura shook her head.

"I'll find out anyways, so you might as well save me the trouble of reading the report." But Sakura obviously had no intention of being helpful.

"If you are the officer assigned to the case, and happen to quesiton me about it during the official debreifing, I will, of course, be happy to answer any of your proffesional inquiries, Nara-san." Sakura said curtly, giving a slight, respectful bow of her head before she began to walk away.

"Off to train? So soon after getting back?" Shikamaru asked, seemingly nonchalant. To anyone else in the hall, it may have seemed like an indifferent conversation between two acquaintances, nothing of consequence or weight. It was only Sakura, and Shikamaru, who knew that he was being rude. Sakura made her stance on his manners clear by cracking all the knuckles in her good hand as she pulled her fingers into a firm, clean fist.

"They want to see you, you know." Shikamaru turned, hands over his head with a yawn, "Planned some kind of party for a welcome home. Something about the bar, sometime…later…" He waved his hand to show that he really didn't care about the details, only the basics of the message. By his standards in relating that much, his job was done.

"As always, Nara-san, I appreciate your proffesionalism." Sakura stated, drly.

"Just the messenger…" Shikamaru turned to give her a smirk, but Sakura was already gone. She was probably going home to change before loosing herself to training again.

"Eh," He grumbled, "girls…troublesome…"

In the years since Konoha's revival none of the rookie nine had change more than Haruno Sakura. Sure, some had gotten married, had families, taken positions off the battlefield or in civilian posts, but most of them had managed to retain a majority of who they were when they were younger. Sakura, however, had been stripped down by time, worn and torn into so many pieces that Shikamaru was forced to annoy her just to make conversation–and that was…troublesome. The girl didn't really socialize anymore, didn't attend weddings or birthdays, opting to usually visit the memorial stone instead.

_She wonders why he didn't take her with him…_Shikamaru sighed. _Damn you, Naruto. Going off to find the Uchiha all on your own…_

From what Shikamaru heard Sakura had never taken on any students of her own, never moved from the small one bedroom apartment she had rented when she was seventeen, and never backed down from a mission offer or assignment.

_No matter how terrible…_Shikamaru shuddered. Having planned many of those missions, he had a hard time looking at "Akiri-san" quite the same as he use to. Before he realized where she was going and what risks she was taking, he merely saw her as a minor glitch in the system, a female shinobi with a decent set of skills but nothing special or of any strategic value.

It wasn't that he meant to be cold about it, but Shikamaru's mind worked in factors and balances, and Sakura had always been a rather mediocre factor in his book. There had formerly been no real benefit to having her on a team or mission except for her exceptional medical skill.

Then, one day, Ibiki was suddenly writing the girl's name on the top of the assignment list, requesting her special for mission dedicated to intelligence and information extraction. Suddenly the Hyuga genius didn't refer to her presence on his team as a "Test of fate", the Aburame's bugs flicked their wings when she passed him in the hallway, reacting to her constant change in chakra levels, and according to hairstyle and disguise the girl had at least six open contracts out for information on her identity, or simply the delivery of her head to certain organizations outside the fire nation.

_How does someone get like that? You can't just wake up with the mentality of an assassin…_He went back into the planning room he was using, glancing at the open file of information Ibiki had just given him. It was all there, every detail of the mission Sakura had just returned from, and more.

_Too much…_Shikamaru scowled in disgust at the small item wrapped in bandages that had fallen out of the file. He was hoping that by goading the girl, he would have been able to get a little more information out of her before the debriefing meeting tomorrow morning, but sadly, no such luck.

Shikamaru covered his nose as Anko-san shuffled in with an evidence bag.

"Where's it?" She drawled, an empty dango stick bouncing up and down in her mouth. Shikamaru picked up the bandages and unwrapped them, dropping the object inside.

"Forefinger. Gruesome." Anko nodded to Shikamaru, sealing the bag and marking it as a biohazard.

_Gruesome…_He agreed with a grim look, trying to figure out for the life of him why Haruno-san had picked _that_ as a sign of the outcome of the mission. A simple 'they're dead' would have sufficed, but from the dirty look of the cut, and the jagged edges of the bone, Shikamaru couldn't help but thinking there was something personal here.

"Damn. What'd the guy do? Insult her mother?" Anko was turning the evidence bag two and fro, analyzing the severed digit inside with awe.

"I think it'd take more than that to make her go off, Anko." Shikamaru took the bag from her and set it on the table, motioning to the door as politely as he could. He needed quiet to think, and Anko was anything but.

"Meh, meh, fine, fine." She grumbled, shuffling out, "but that finger was torn off, not cut, and it's jagged because the appendage was probably still attached to a live person at the time. If I were you, I wouldn't be too confident about assuming much depth to the Haruno's tolerance."

"I think I understand Haruno-san's character well enough without your help, Anko-san, thank you." Shikamaru said stiffly. He didn't know why, but the idea of anyone even suggesting that "The Haruno", as Anko so eloquently put it, was anything but the consummate professional really lit a fuse.

Anko just shrugged, a dirty little smirk on her face, pleased with the unrest she'd caused for the moment.

"You'll see." She said mysteriously, dropping out into the hallway and away from sight. Now alone, Shikamaru glanced at the clear plastic bag marked "biohazard" that was still lying on the table near Sakura's mission report.

He wasn't so sure he wanted to see.


	4. Chapter 4: Kana

Special thanks to the awesome reviewers: SasoLOVE11, TroubledFred, and Safrael. Sorry if I accidentally delete comments or reviews, it's not that I don't love you, I'm just kind of update stupid when it comes to the FF formatting fields. :D ::muah::

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Chapter 4 : Kana

She didn't bother going back to her apartment.

It was a small place, one bedroom and a kitchen with a tiny bathroom and living area, and she didn't feel like being boxed in at the moment. It was bad enough that she had to stay at headquarters for as long as she did this morning, assuring Tsunade that the mission had been a success.

Then again, maybe titling the assignment a success was overstating matters. The main object of the mission had been to spy on a foreign businessman who had set up operations just outside the borders of fire country. It was supposed to be simple. Gather information, and execute only if the situation called for it. Sakura felt that Ibiki had known when he gave her the scroll several months before, that the situation would probably call for it.

Sakura sighed, her stomach clenching as she changed her direction to take her to the training grounds. Shikamaru had been right about where she would end up, even if she hadn't known it herself yet. Stupid geniuses and their stupid…well, genius.

Sakura needed to destroy something, to get the mission out of her system and the images of it out of her head. She needed to push back the dark, pressing feelings of guilt, to banish the picture of black eyes, cold hands, and blood pooling on a freshly cleaned floors. She wanted the whole experience gone. The loss of time would do her good, make her feel useful again, and she _needed_ to feel useful. Because if she wasn't off training or helping, serving, or fighting, then she was just…

_Here_**...**She closed her eyes as she set foot on her favored training ground, field-seven. This training field had a vast array of geography, rocks in particular, and Sakura liked rocks. The granite compounds that lay just a few feet beneath the soft dirt of the field could be fashioned into nearly anything with the addition of her chakra, and she liked the option of having several offensive possibilities. Plus, it helped that she could often find Kakashi here.

She could feel him as she approached, moving around in about half a dozen forms, trying to take himself by surprise in a meditation exercise. God, she envied that white, hot, chakra like most girls eyed a pair of sleek high-heels in the window at a boutique. Out here in the middle of nowhere in the training grounds, she wasn't sure why he didn't mask his chakra more completely. Honestly, anyone could sneak up on him like that with his attention directed elsewhere.

"Konichiwa, Kakashi-sensei." She greeted, faking a smile as she stood besides the peaceful looking silver-haired, man. She was good at faking, the best, actually. But she'd had practice. Pretending to be happy these past four years had trained her well in the art of lying. Aside from fooling friends and family, it came in handy on missions, too. Kakashi cracked open one of his eyes to see what his keen senses had not. One rose-haired, green-eyed, seriously bored, baby Anbu.

_Not good…_Kakashi sighed. She probably wanted to spar again. He still wasn't fully healed form their last bout yet, and he wasn't going to be looking forward to another for a long time. Kakashi groaned, moving his shoulder stiffly to accentuate his injuries. Several of his shadow clones were already trying to sneak away into the underbrush, and if the clones were running, it was not a good sign.

"Are you hurt?" Sakura asked.

"You threw me through a mountain." He stated flatly.

"I hardly think a pile rocks really constitutes a mountain." Sakura commented, absently. Kakashi followed her eyes up to the sky, and immediately, he knew exactly where her mind was wandering.

"_Sensei, I need you to fight me." Sakura had said. It was rainy, dark, nearly evening, and Sakura had just returned from a mission. It was her first solo Anbu mission, and though she didn't say so, Kakashi knew something was wrong._

"_You're tired Sakura, go home." Kakashi had said, but Sakura stood her ground._

"_Sensei, I need you to fight me. Right now." Sakura repeated, a small quiver in her voice catching Kakashi's attention. Something was eating at her, tearing at her hard and he could see the tension building up inside of her as though she were a pot of water ready to boil over. After thinking about this for a moment, Kakashi suddenly changed his mind about the match._

"_Alright, Sakura-chan, if that's what you want." Kakashi put his precious little orange book away, giving Sakura his full attention._

"_It's what I want." Sakura had stated with certainty._

Kakashi supposed, after that first time four years ago, that fighting through her problems, fears, and doubts, was the only way Sakura knew how to deal with them anymore.

"It was a rock formation, and yes, in this case I believe that any pile of rocks that stands at least a hundred feet tall and several miles wide constitutes a mountain." He pulled out a familiar orange covered book and stuck his nose in it obstinately.

"You were the one who insisted on a 'no holds barred' sparring standard." Sakura reminded him, wearily. She didn't want to argue with him. She just wanted to fight. To do the one thing that helped her forget about everything other than the next attack.

"So I did," Kakashi stood, his shadow clones silently making their escape into the underbrush, "I suppose you want the same rules as before?"

"Why bother," Sakura replied, " when you're just going to bend them anyway."

"Touché, my little baby Anbu."

"Kakashi, as previously discussed, in detail, if you ever call me that again I will cast a Genjutsu on you that will make the late Uchiha Itachi seem a saint."

Four years back it would have been Naruto receiving the insults, his bright blue eyes almost drawn to tears as the weight of the words hit his sharp, sensitive little ears.

_Not the same…_Sakura eyed Kakashi carefully as one of his hands went up towards a pouch on his chest, but instead simply came to rest on the center of his rib cage.

Kakashi paused a moment, thinking about not whether Sakura would do what she said, but whether or not she had gained the ability to do so without his knowledge. After all, It was entirely possible. Sakura had always been a fast learner, and she had been on Anbu assignments for the better part of the last four years, giving her plenty of opportunities to practice. Realizing this, Kakashi was suddenly feeling a little less sure of his ability to defend himself against his former student's attacks.

Before Kakashi had a chance to object, Sakura suddenly rushed at him, sending a crescent kick aimed straight at his skull. Kakashi knew what that kick could do, having been on the receiving end of it many times when Sakura was still leaning how to expel chakra at the point of impact in her attacks to increase their damage ten-fold. Thankfully, that had been before she had perfected it, allowing him to escape with only a few broken bones, and one major concussion.

This time was not looking good in regards to coming out unscathed.

Kakashi managed to grab Sakura's ankle, tossing her overhead, only to be caught by surprise when a hand shot up out of the ground and grabbed his leg.

"Hmm," Kakashi hummed, realizing that he hadn't even seen Sakura do any hand signs a moment ago.

_Must have done them behind her back when we were talking…_Kakashi thought, fondly.

Sakura struck again only to be blocked by a column of stone that had been fashioned into a dragon. Sakura shattered it as she tore through the mess to get back to Kakashi. He kicked out at her face pulling a trip wire he had strung behind the column, which threw Sakura back into a fall that she flipped out of easily. Standing on her feet once again, Sakura attacked once more. Her blows rained down in a parry of throws and punches, palms and holds, causing even Kakashi to lose his breath in trying to keep up with her. Sakura goaded him whenever she could catch her breath, to which he would respond in same, minus the expletives Sakura seemed to be so fond of.

After nearly an hour, Sakura and Kakashi stood, panting, on either side of the clearing, trying to find the energy to continue. It was a draw so far, which was unusual. Sakura figured that they had both been tired to begin with her just back from a mission, and Kakashi just returned from who knows where. It was surprising that they had even managed to keep up with one another.

_She's getting faster again…dammit…_Kakashi stooped, his hands resting on his knees as he tried to regain some sense of composure. Sakura was going harder on him this time, like she was trying to work something out in every punch, every throw.

_Great. Now I'm a therapist…_He groaned, cracking his neck.

Sakura, meanwhile, was trying to plan her next attack. She was tired, so tired that she could feel the bones shaking underneath her muscles, threatening to collapse all on their own. She wiped her forehead; quickly healing a little gash Kakashi had given her in their last incursion. Her fingers burned from too much chakra use, but she wouldn't heal them yet. The pain felt good…really good.

Kakashi suddenly disappeared, leaving Sakura alone in the clearing. Sakura closed her eyes, opening her senses to feel Kakashi's chakra ducking in and out of her inner vision as she tried to figure out what he was doing. On occasion his chakra would deplete a little, making her think that he was dropping clones around the area. Sakura groaned.

_He wants to make this difficult? Fine. They haven't been out since yesterday anyway…_Sakura made several hands signs in front of herself, quietly whispering the words,

"Konton karada geijutsu!"

Two very strange, very distinct characters appeared from behind Sakura, slipping out of her shadow and into the dim afternoon light. The first figure was small and pretty, a woman with straight red hair and cold grey eyes, while the second was a taller young girl with bright green hair and inky black irises. They both wore versions of the Haruno clan symbol, and to anyone walking by they might have seemed like family for all the features they had in common.

"_Everyone is comprised of elements, skills, personalities that make us who we are." Tsunade had said, when she first noticed Sakura summoning the two modified clones during sparring lessons._

"_You're use to fighting with a three or four man cell, so it would only be natural that you would be most comfortable creating two or three clones. How it works with most people is that their Chakra constricts, and then expands–like osmosis, creating a copy of the original."_

"_Then why don't they look like me?" Sakura had asked, much to one of the clone's upset. The green haired clone asked if Sakura thought she was ugly, asking if perhaps she cut her hair or change her voice whether that would improve anything._

"_And why is it doing that?" Sakura glanced at the odd creation of chakra and technique that was presently having self-esteem issues. Tsunade had merely chuckled._

"_Most people create copies because they are unaware of how many layers an individual has. To be aware of all parts of oneself takes time, and a great deal of pain. Even if a person was aware of it, they would need extreme chakra control to copy only a certain aspect of themselves."_

_"So they're different than me? I thought they were like Naruto's."_

"_No, they're different parts of you. Imagine you with a focus on your strength, or medical skills, or intelligence. That is what they are." Tsunade pointed to the two girls Sakura had summoned._

Sakura had named them Ichi and Ni, respectively. After working with each of the clones separately, Sakura had found that Ichi, with the long red hair, was prone to brute shows of strength along with a heightened sense to vibrations, be they earthquakes or footfalls. Ni, the clone with the green hair, was good with traps–getting caught in them as well as getting out–and had a very keen sense of smell. What perhaps surprised Sakura the most, besides their individual skills were the strange way they acted. Sometimes it was as though they had their own individual personalities and weren't based off of her at all.

"We fighting Hiiro-sempai again?" Ni asked, her dark eyes sparkling in excitement.

"So long as Ichi doesn't punch him through any geography again." Sakura gave Ichi a warning glare.

"We lose more sparring partners that way." Ni sighed sadly.

A slight 'Hn' and a smirk was the only answer that came from the red head.

"Faces." Sakura reminded them. Both clones immediately made a few familiar hand signs.

"Kao Oduri!" Each clone suddenly took on the same appearance as their rose-haired creator.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, you cut your hair!" Ni said, happily running her fingers through the soft, dark pink locks that were resting on her shoulders.

"Baka." Ichi grumbled, folding her arms across her chest, a mark of restraint on her part. Sakura wondered briefly if wanting to hurt a reflection of yourself was a sign of pending mental instability.

"Among other things." Ichi agreed, answering Sakura's thoughts.

"He rounded about to create a barrier and drop some clones," Sakura said, "find him."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" Ni disappeared in a puff of smoke while Ichi blurred out into thin air.

Sakura pressed a handful of chakra into her bad leg, which was acting up in her exhaustion, recalling fondly the first sparing match in which she'd used the clones. It seemed so long ago, her strange technique being discovered by Kakashi, and then Tsunade in like. Sakura hadn't meant to keep it a secret from everyone but she was younger and more naïve then. She somehow had herself believing that she would get in trouble, that she had done the signs wrong and would be punished for stumbling upon some twisted, dark, version of the technique Naruto had taught her.

It wasn't until Kakashi told her how unusual her technique was, with neither the same air of fear or disgust as Sakura displayed towards it, that she started to hope that it might be something good.

"_They're like you when you were a Genin. All happy-go-lucky." Ino had said, when Sakura first showed her the clones one afternoon at her apartment. Ichi had been religiously hunting down a fly in the kitchen at the time and Ni had been painting her toenails in a bright green on the couch._

"_It's just so…strange." She continued to stare at them until Sakura got annoyed and dispelled the jutsu. Ino had then started to stare at Sakura's bright green toenails._

"_So if something happens to one–" Ino started._

"_It will absorb back to me when I can no longer hold the technique."_

"_That's so weird." Ino mumbled, her face significantly paler now._

Even though Sakura didn't like it, she had to agree with Ino. Her relationship with her clones, however it worked, was strange. She talked to them like normal shinobi, and they seemed to take directions the same as regular individuals, opinions and all. But they also moved like her, could sync up their attacks with little more than a thought, and they answered each other across distances with some strange form of telepathy that Tsunade explained as 'Chakra linking'.

Ibiki-san became particularly interested in Tsunade's work and research on Sakura's technique when Tsunade invited him to a training session to observe the phenomena. His jaw dropped so far that Tsunade was afraid he'd wrenched it out of joint. The man had practically thrown Sakura into Anbu afterwards, and the rest was pretty much history.

_Not a very pretty history…_Sakura thought, glancing at the scars on her right forearm. No one could see them, not unless they looked at her from an angle, or in just the right light–but they were there. Sakura knew every jagged line, every burned piece of flesh healed over glossy, pale, and new. She could feel the place where she almost lost her thumb, and when weather grew bad, the scar ached. She rubbed the bandages wrapped around her arms gently, like she was checking to make sure the appendages hadn't disappeared.

_No worries! We've got spares…_Ni chimed.

_Not enough…_Ichi told her.

_It's never enough._ Sakura thought, effectively silencing her clone companions. They should have known better than to do their usual squabbles and quarreling today. Today of all days Sakura needed silence.

_The day he left…_Ni whimpered remembering.

_Yes, Ni,_ Sakura told her, _the day he left._

_Four years…long time to not see the fox-boy. _Ichi thought.

_Or chicken head…_Ni added.

"Yeah," Sakura mumbled out loud, no longer paying attention to her clones.

Four years was a long time.

* * *

Translations

Ichi = _1_

Ni = _2_

Hiiro = _Grey_

Konton karada geijutsu = _Body Confusion/Technique_

Kao Oduri = _Face Dance_

Baka = _Idiot_


	5. Chapter 5 : Kiri

Chapter 5 : Kiri

_Tsunade had dragged Sakura and Kakashi out of their respective beds in the middle of the night and straight into her office for a little 'low-key' reconnaissance mission. The instructions were very concise–very simple._

"_Find out what happened… observe but don't engage, locate but do not intercede…"_

_Tsunade hadn't told them what it was about, only that a large team of jounin had gone missing near the border. She was sending out two man teams, one of which was going to be Sakura and Kakashi. Simple mission: Check it out, get back home. _

_No sweat. _

_Sakura didn't mind the obscurity as long as she got home in time to see Hinata. She and the Hyuga girl had become close friends to the point where, whenever one or the other wasn't off on a mission, it was like they were joined at the hip._

_Sakura was thinking about all the stuff she had to catch Hinata up on when she got home. How she'd seen Neji kissing Tenten on the practice field, how Kiba had gone table dancing the night before at the bar…little stupid things, tiny humors that made the pain they both bore bearable._

_Naruto….God, how she had wished he was there. Hinata still couldn't manage to say the boy's name out loud without great big tears welling up, but Sakura knew how that went, and told her it was okay. She'd been in love once too. Still was, as far as she knew._

"_If something is keeping them," Tsunade had said in the briefing, "please remind them that they are required back at the village." Tsunade spoke clearly, gently, and then there was the fact that she had said "please"._

_Sakura took a tentative step back, trying to figure out what was wrong. Everything about how her teacher was acting was wrong. She sounded sober–which immediately put up a red flag for Sakura. It was like Tsunade was trying to say something else, trying to tell them a different set of instructions all together between her words._

_**I have a bad feeling. They haven't come back yet. Please, go and find them. Bring them home**__...The Hokage looked calm, an expression Sakura knew was used to mask her worry._

"_Hai, Hokage-sama." Kakashi sounded so sure, so confident. Sakura could do nothing but hope it really was just a "simple" mission, and that he was right not to fear it. Still, there was that dark feeling of dread gnawing at Sakura's nerves in the back of her mind._

_**Something's wrong...**_

_Sakura and Kakashi had departed just after the mission briefing, feeling more and more lost in the strangeness of the circumstances as they neared their destination._

"_I'll be glad when this is over," Sakura mumbled, jumping from tree to tree, right beside Kakashi._

"_Hm? Why?" He seemed so wonderfully at ease, so relaxed. Maybe there was a chance she was imagining things, feelings out of worry, overblown paranoia and nothing more._

"_I have a bad feeling." Sakura told him, echoing the words she'd seen in her teacher's tired brown eyes._

"_Hn."_

"_I'm fine," Sakura said, "I'll just be better when this is over. I don't like all the secrecy and not knowing. It makes me feel like we're doing something wrong."_

"_Well, Patience is the greatest of virtues." Kakashi smiled beneath his mask._

_She thought this a prudent moment to inform her former sensei how full of shit he was. His eye crinkled in a smile and he chuckled, warmly. Sakura smirked, silently glad that Kakashi, of all people, was still here–with her. She was glad that he wasn't one of the avengers, or heroes of promises that were meant to be broken, and that he didn't pry where he knew he shouldn't. He was simple and solid, like a statue, something immovable and impenetrable, strong and invincible._

_It was then that the Kunai hit him in the back of the head._

* * *

Sakura opened her eyes.

"How's your head?" She inquired.

Kakashi looked over at her from his perch on the low branch of a nearby tree. The Spar had lost momentum once Kakashi realized that Ichi was in the fight, and he had asked for a recess so that he would have a chance to "Say goodbye to the world". He was now half-reading, half-sleeping in the tree and Sakura was sitting just below, plucking dandelions and turning them into little green and yellow kunai with a new jutsu she'd picked up.

"I think there's still a bit of a breeze between my ears, but otherwise I believe I'm just fine." Kakashi smiled. Sakura glanced up at him, studying his careful smile for any sign that he was lying to her.

The kunai that had almost ended his life that night was still partly embedded in the bone of his skull. Sakura suspected it made for a real picnic for some poor public service officials whenever her former sensei had to go through metal detectors. Sakura knew the scar was still there somewhere, hiding under layers of his bushy gray hair. It made her sick to think about it. It made her remember what it had been like when it happened.

_Kakashi suddenly falling, her hurtling after him, the forest floor coming up so fast. There had been a lot of blood, add to that the fall, which Sakura only managed to keep them alive from by forcing chakra into her hands and grabbing at branches, leaving her barely able to grasp anything else for weeks afterwards. Maybe if she hadn't injured her hands so badly she would have been able to help Kakashi and the others more. Maybe a few of them might still be alive._

"I'm fine." Kakashi assured her again, gently. When Sakura eyed him suspiciously, he changed the subject.

"How's the leg?"

"Fine." But she'd answered too quickly for him to believe her.

"I'm sorry," He replied softly.

"So–" Sakura stood, stretching out her left leg, the one that always hurt, "I hear there's a people thing tonight."

"You going to go?"

"Depends on what threat Ino left on my answering machine."

"That seems fair," Kakashi shrugged, "you talk to her lately?"

"Haven't talked to anyone lately." Sakura admitted, grabbing her things. She was shutting him out again, refusing to answer his questions by making jokes when the subject matter became too personal for her liking.

"Somewhere to be?" Kakashi asked, watching as his former student turned to go.

"Something like that." Sakura mumbled, dashing off into the trees.

Kakashi waited until Sakura was out of sight to turn his eyes towards the sun set, a great golden yellow light slowly sliding down behind the horizon.

It wasn't fair. He saw a great deal of himself in Sakura now, and that was not a pleasant revelation, not a part of history that was meant to repeat itself. He knew how she felt, but he couldn't get through to her. The girl had given so much for so long, only to be forced to watch as everything she ever cared about was torn from her–something like that messed with you, and messed with you bad.

How he wished he could help her more, but he just didn't know how. He sparred with her whenever she wished, went on every mission he could with her, refused stubbornly to be placed with anyone else in Anbu operations–anything to bring back some of that good old feeling of team 7, and that fleeting sense of family. He looked after her in the ways he knew and had others, like Ino, look after her in the ways he didn't.

_She's still too proud to allow much_…He closed his eyes, basking in the warm rays of the setting sun.

Sakura was putting up walls, bigger and thicker than before. Kakashi had sensed it for a while, but it still surprised him. When she'd entered Anbu four years ago, she'd been a chatterbox about missions, assignments, and strategic planning. Then, just like that, she stopped talking about it. She became so quiet that Kakashi began to worry. There was too much going on inside that mind of hers to keep him comfortable being blind to it. He knew the toll that Anbu took on you, and he knew it wasn't a good place to be alone. If only Naruto had returned, or Hinata hadn't been–

_Too late for that now…_Kakashi sat up, looking at his book again only to realize that it had now become too dark for reading. With a sigh and a shrug he got up, making his way back to the village.

It seemed to him that it was too late for a lot of things.


	6. Chapter 6 : Nami

To SasoLOVE111, TroubledFred, Safrael, and ArjunaAnja, thank you for the wonderful reviews. To all those who fav'd and subscribed, thank you from the bottom of my dark little heart.

Chapter 6 : Nami

Inside, she could feel the bruise on the top of her left side beginning to form; a deep contusion of purple and pink slowly rising to a pebble sized lump under her skin.

_Not invincible anymore…_she groaned, pulling herself up on the covered stairs of her apartment complex. Her boots scraped the bottom of each step as she stumbled up the stairs, one by one, reaching into her pocked for a little, rusty, key as she tried not to fall. It was sad how much pride that tiny key, and the battered red door it belonged to, still brought her. It was the first thing that ever truly belong to her, and subsequently the only thing that hadn't been taken away, yet.

True, a dinky, little, walled-in corner of the universe was an odd thing to find homey, but Sakura couldn't seem to help it. The place had a charm, a coziness about it that reminded her of rooms in her old house, which had slowly become overrun with feral dust bunnies under the careful care of her inattentive mother and father. Her mother's sewing projects cluttered every open surface like mold, and her father's tools littered the floor like small woodland animals, always seeming to multiply when you looked away. To make it worse, amid it all were large stacks of brown, card-board boxes that her mother swore she was going to 'Give away' but that just stayed where she put them, pile after pile until you had to move them just to access the bathroom.

_Miss that…_Sakura sighed.

Ino kept telling her to move out of the 'rat-hole', as she had so kindly nicknamed Sakura's apartment, but Sakura wouldn't budge, no matter how badly Ino insulted it. It was hers, and she wasn't leaving; end-of-story. Ino, however, had never really learned to take rejection that well. Never one to be denied, the blonde bombshell apparently went to plan B, sliding lottery tickets under Sakura's the door every time there was a jackpot to be won. Sakura didn't bother to inform her friend that her choice of residence wasn't an issue of funding because she was too amused by Ino's ideas about how to fix her situation.

_Keep hoping Yamanaka…_Sakura stepped up to the third floor landing, her feet dragging, her arms and legs like led from overuse.

_Think Ichi may have strained something…_Sakura grimaced, holding her leg tightly with one hand to quell the pain. It was always like this when she released the clones. Any injuries they suffered, Ichi in particular, were immediately given to Sakura the moment she dispelled them. Ni had a good amount of medical knowledge, somewhere in the ballpark vicinity of where Sakura had been at fifteen, but while Ni could usually heal her injuries before the technique was released, Ichi couldn't.

_She would probably think the pain was good for us, anyways…_

Coming to her door, Sakura was surprised to notice a large, white, dog curled up on the floor in front of her apartment. His ears twitched as he heard her coming and his eyes shot open, head suddenly turning, tail wagging a little as he saw her. He must've picked up her scent at the gates.

Sakura bent down to pet him gently behind the ears. Akamaru's soft, dark, puppy eyes, blinked, looking back at Sakura in a strange sort of relief. He'd thought she'd abandoned him again. Every time she went on a mission he was like this, and every time she returned he was as happy as a kid with cake to see her again. He leaned forward and licked her face, tentative, questioning, asking her if she was all right. Sakura smiled slightly, petting Akamaru's head just as gently, assuring him that she was here now, and she was fine.

Holding open the door, Akamaru slipped inside first with Sakura just behind. Kiba's mother hadn't been able to bear Akamaru all on her own. She said he made her remember Kiba too much, and _that_ made it harder not to cry. She asked Sakura to take the dog on a few months ago since Sakura and Kiba had been 'such good friends'.

_Yeah…friends…_So good that she wasn't there when he died. Sure. Haruno Sakura was one hell of a friend, all right.

Hinata, Kiba, and Shino had been a safety net for Sakura for a long time. She had joined their team shortly after the jounin exams, and every picture still in her apartment was of the four of them, together. She had taken down most of her photographs once Hinata was gone, then more once she was packing up Hinata and Kiba's stuff. Shino didn't visit, so she took down the ones with him too. With his recent reclusive drinking habits, it was almost as if he was as good as gone. If he wasn't in a bar getting drunk or sleeping, then he was at home…getting drunk, or sleeping.

There were still a few framed photographs that Sakura hadn't managed part with yet, and they sat in small places of honor where Akamaru couldn't knock them over with his monstrously bushy tail. She'd forced herself to look at their faces until it didn't hurt to see the smiles, or to remember them. She told herself she needed to do that, to be able to look at them every day and remind herself that they had been real, that they had walked the Konoha blocks, and trained in the same training fields as she did now. It made her feel like a small part of them were still here, close to her, even if nothing was farther from the truth.

There was one picture in particular that seemed to press a little bit harder on her than the others. She kept it by her bed in a beautiful cherry wood frame, which was presently face down for fear of allowing the picture to fade. She only had one copy, so she had to be careful with it.

It was a picture of the four of them: Shino, Kiba, her, and Hinata covered in mud, blood, and God knows what, smiling and grinning like sugar-high idiots with their new Jonin vests held high above them like trophies. It was their first picture together…as a team.

_Not anymore…_Sakura thought of Shino, drowning his sorrows in bottle after bottle, and her, drowning herself in missions and paper work. She supposed they both had their own poison for the pain.

Sakura sighed. She was exhausted. Too tired to bother showing up to Ino's party, only to lie about not feeling well and drag herself home. She also didn't want to take the chance of seeing Shino, if she could help it, and he was seeing Ino now. Seeing as the last conversation Sakura had with Shino had ended with both of them needing stitches, Sakura thought it best to keep her distance for the time being.

Sakura went to her bed, intent on sleeping well into the next ice age when she noticed a large, furry shape, creating a dent in the middle of her thick white comforter.

_Every time I turn my back he's up on the furniture…_Sakura groaned.

Akamaru's head tilted slightly as Sakura snuggled into the bed beside him, moving over a little to allow her more room. Once situated, Akamaru leaned his head on her side to make the most of her intrusion on his space, and as he breathed, a slight whimper escaped his mouth. Sakura's heart broke a little for the animal. You could barely explain to a human being why their best friend was gone and never coming back. It was no surprise that Akamaru was still having trouble understanding why Kiba and Hinata weren't in the bed in the other room. Why when he went in there every night looking for them, their scent seemed less and less potent–like it was fading away.

"It's okay," Sakura whispered, trying to fight the urge to cry as she gently draped her arm over the mass of soft white fur beside her, "I miss them too."

As Sakura sat in the debriefing room the next morning, her mind entertained itself by drawing patterns on the wall between the cracks in the off-white globs of repaired plaster. It seemed, after so many years of maintaining a smooth and pristine surface that even the architecture at headquarters was cracking.

_Bout' time it showed somewhere..._Sakura huffed.

The door quietly clicked open, ushering in two young Chunin followed lazily by a familiar dark haired intelligence officer.

_Aw,_ _dammit all…_Sakura sighed. Karma was a _bitch_.

"Haruno-san," Shikamaru nodded, almost mockingly.

"Nara," Sakura nodded to him and then flitted a glance at the two young shinobi behind him, a silent asking look on her face.

"On loan," Shikamaru grunted, an annoyed look on his face as he took the seat opposite hers with a thick, coffee-stained, manila folder under his arm.

Sakura glanced at his hands, tracing a long white scar that ran from one palm to another with her eyes; surprised it had healed so well despite Shikamaru's laziness in taking care of it. Like the sharp pain in Sakura's left leg, the scar on Shikamaru's hands was just another reminder of how steep the price for peace, however temporary, truly was. Shikamaru was just lucky she'd been there at the time. The man literally owed her his livelihood.

As Shikamaru looked up from the file Sakura looked away, suddenly very interested in the floor.

One of the Chunin managed the courage to try a glance over Shikamaru's shoulder, trying to peek at the contents of the supposed 'confidential' folder.

"Keep doing that and you'll get a senbon in the eye." Shikamaru said, causing the Chunin boy to blush and retreat to a stiff, attentive position by the wall. Shikamaru muttered some cursing string about babysitting and strategic battle-planning being two very different vocations before looking back up at her.

"Haven't you noticed?" He grumbled suddenly, his eyes narrowed at her in irritation.

"Noticed?" Sakura asked, confused.

"I got most of the blood off of your mission report," He smirked, cheekily. Sakura almost wanted to chuckle at the slightly green expression suddenly painting the two young Chunin behind him. Almost.

"I barely recognized it," Sakura replied dryly.

Shikamaru smiled at her, obviously taking any response on her part as a compliment to his sick sense of humor. He pulled a small photo from the front of the folder, sliding it out onto the table in front of her.

It was a picture of a man with brown hair and pale eyes. Sakura's pulse quickened, and it was only through years of training and practice that she managed to keep her expression passive. It was hard, faking a calm surface when everything inside her felt like it was screaming.

Shikamaru watched her carefully, waiting for a response.

Sakura, however, just looked up, staring back into his eyes as though it was him who was supposed to explain. Shikamaru narrowed his gaze at her further, not liking this silent little game she was playing. The look in her eyes was intense, and so focused on him that he almost felt a warmth rising up in his cheeks. Time to change tactics.

"Mean something to you?" Shikamaru asked pointedly, breaking eye contact. He needed to be clear headed now, no useless banter going about in his head, let alone thoughts that led him to…well, _other_ things.

"You read the report, Nara-san," Sakura's eyes flashed behind Shikamaru to the two Chunin, hoping he could take a hint.

"You two," Shikamaru waved a hand, "out."

The two Chunin gave a disappointed grumble as they lightly shuffled out the door and into the hallway. Once they were gone, Shikamaru turned his eyes on Sakura.

"There's three hours unaccounted for in your event breakdown."

"It happens." Sakura shrugged.

"Not with you it doesn't." Shikamaru said, noticing the way her fingers twitched absently when he said that. She only twitched when she was unsettled by something. Shikamaru had asked Shino about it one day at Ichikiru, curious what all her little twitches and flinches were about.

"_It's the only way she can tell the truth anymore,"_ Shino had said. _"Her lips say one thing, her thoughts say another, and then the rest of her is like a scale. The more weighty the lie, the calmer she appears, but the stiffer the jerks in her muscles. It's the only way she can live with it, you know. By forcing herself to believe it was something else. But forcing that stuff, the hard stuff, it does something to you. It twists up your insides so much that you can't unwind, no matter how hard you try to..."_

"I apologize for my _thoughtlessness_, it will not happen again." Sakura said. Her eyebrow twitched, and Shikamaru noticed. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but he caught it, just barely. He was making her nervous.

"If Ibiki had read this, you'd be in an interrogation room right now." Shikamaru pressed, trying to get Sakura to understand. They were both shinobi, they knew what a blank spot in a report meant, and they knew what unaccounted time during a mission usually was sign of.

_Traitor…_The word floated at the forefront of both of their minds for a minute, pushed away only by the necessity of time. Shikamaru hissed at the silence Sakura exuded, frustrated.

"You have to tell me _something_, Sakura. I can't keep covering up your…thoughtlessness." Shikamaru spoke darkly, but his eyes were pleading with her. He didn't want to be the one to tell Ibiki that Haruno had started missing pieces of time in her report breakdowns months ago, showing whole days passing without any way to account for how they were spent. He didn't want to be the one to suggest that she was anything but perfect little Haruno. He couldn't bear the burden of bringing down a hero, no matter how much they seemed to want it for themselves, and he certainly didn't want that hero to be Sakura.

Shikamaru rubbed his eyes, trying to think. He was supposed to be able to think his way of out anything, wasn't he? So, why wasn't his mind working now, when he needed it?

"Just tell them, Shikamaru," Sakura said. Her tone held no malice or bitterness towards him at all. It had sounded just as calm and collected as the day he had first confronted her with his findings. He'd corrected it the first time, thinking that she really had just done it by accident. The missions she took were the ones no one else wanted or could do, and at the time, it only seemed logical that it wasn't the end of the world if her memory or paperwork wasn't perfect.

When he finally did work up the nerve to accuse her, albeit privately, she hadn't denied anything, hadn't even tried. She just openly admitted that 'yes' there was time missing from her breakdown of events, but she offered nothing to account for it. He said he would have to tell Ibiki and Tsunade. She didn't object. She simply looked up at him, with the same calm as she did now, and said that it was the right thing to do.

What she meant was that it was what _she_ would do, if she were in his place. She meant that she'd turn him in, if the roles were reversed, and she'd probably do it with zero of the angst that seemed to be stilling his hand.

_Can't do it…just suggesting that someone like you could…_Shikamaru held his face in his hands for a moment, trying collect his thoughts without the guilt of looking her in the eye.

"Why are you doing this?" He said wearily, "this was messy, Sakura, sloppy even by Chunin standards."

"You don't know that. Have you actually consulted any Chunin about it?" Sakura smiled, fake and bright, mocking him. Probably trying to get a rise out of him, he figured. Instead, it only made him calmer.

"This isn't some kind of war-game, Sakura." He said seriously, "what if they find out?"

"I never asked you to lie for me Shikamaru."

Shikamaru look down at the table. He was clenching his hands, trying to keep from strangling her, or him, or the two Chunin outside…though, that wasn't such a bad idea. Shikamaru was beside himself. Why did Sakura do this? Didn't she understand that he was trying to help her? Wasn't she afraid, or an even a better question, _why_ wasn't she afraid?

"I can't just let a top Anbu Captain sabotage themselves." Shikamaru said, "we're short on shinobi as is."

"I'm sorry, Nara-san," Sakura bowed her head respectfully, "but if you have a problem with the way I write my mission reports you should take it up with Ibiki. As it stands, I believe I'm done with the interview for today."

She got up, reaching for the door when Shikamaru abruptly leaned against the doorframe, blocking her way.

"I noticed the forefinger. What happened Sakura, did somebody make you angry?" Shikamaru had his shoulder pressed to the door, hard, and even Sakura could see that there would be no opening it. His center of balance was too far up for someone of her height to move without the use of Chakra, and she certainly didn't want to start a fight here.

"I don't get angry, Nara-san." Sakura said, "The finger was something I found at the scene. I thought you could use it."

"A severed digit?" Shikamaru scowled, knowing she wasn't telling the truth, "That's great help, but a head would have been better."

"I'll try to work on that next time. Now let me out, _Nara_." Sakura demanded.

"We're not finished, _Haruno_."

"I don't want to hurt you, lieutenant, please just move," Sakura was feeling boxed in by the small room with the cracks in the walls. She needed to get out, now. Shikamaru, however, didn't seem like he had any intention of budging. Before Sakura knew what she was doing, her hands were moving, grabbing hold of Shikamaru's vest and shoving him hard against the wall and away from the door.

He came back at her quickly throwing a kunai, which Sakura knocked as she turned, kicking him in the side. Shikamaru stumbled back but recovered quickly, moving forward fast as he ran into her, tackling her into the far wall.

Pressing her tight against the wall with his elbow at her throat he asked her why she insisted on ruining any chance she had at a normal life. She only squirmed minimally. Her heart wasn't into the fight, a fact he figured simply by the observation that she hadn't broken any of his bones…yet. Sakura tried to formulate a searing retort, but it didn't come. There too much anger rolling around on the inside for her to sift through the haze to access her thoughts. So, she didn't say anything at all. Vying instead to glare at him with a deep, dark, murderous intent.

Who was he to think he could interfere with her life? He had no ties to her except by graduating class and occupation. He wasn't family, or even a close friend. True, there had been a time when they were on friendly terms, but there had been nothing unusual in the friendship to make Sakura assume that they were _that_ close. Besides, he barely even knew her. He knew what she'd done, and who she was only by mission reports and town gossip, and any idiot could tell you the validity of those sources was crap. What did he want from her, perfection? To never miss a beat, never show a single strand of doubt no matter how odd the situation or assignment, or how innocent the objective appeared?

"Why can't you just open your damn eyes," Shikamaru hissed. Sakura scowled at him, furious.

A heat started to rise up in her at his words, and for a moment she actually thought it was rage. But when she looked at Shikamaru then, she felt…different. She suddenly saw his dark eyes glaring holes into her, his strong stance as he used his full weight to hold her up against the wall, the strength of his scarred hands as he reinforced his hold on her. The proximity of their bodies and the strange idea that this somehow felt intimate made the sudden warmth spread through out her body like a brush fire.

Shikamaru's expression became less severe as he noticed the sudden change in Sakura's gaze. It was as though her anger had vanished, replaced by a slow, dark, intensity that he could see gently boiling to the surface. Shikamaru was about to step away when he felt her grip on his vest tighten. He looked down at her hand, and then to her, about to ask what was wrong when he suddenly felt a flurry of long-buried emotions breaking through the damn. He knew these feelings were wrong. It had been a year since he'd entertained any less than professional ideas about Sakura, and he had meant to keep it that way–for both their sakes.

Life, however, seemed to have a pact with the Devil to make his days on earth more, and more–

_Troublesome…_He leaned down, his lips gently brushing against Sakura's. She let him, and he didn't think to ask her why just then. It wasn't too much, he told himself. He needed this, just this second, even if it only ever was this second, just to imagine what they could have been. Sakura felt warm, so warm, and for the first time since he'd known her _she_ pulled _him_ closer. Despite all his better instincts, Shikamaru found he was the first to pull away.

"Sakura…" He whispered, out of breath.

Sakura nodded in her haze, the wall behind her being the only thing that was holding her up. Up and against Shikamaru's chest, in his arms, with his hips pressing slightly against hers she could only think of one thing, and it wasn't the _mission_ debriefing. Shikamaru pressed his forehead to hers, and Sakura closed her eyes, reveling at the feeling of being close to anyone for the first time in such a long, long time.

There was such a surprising charge in his touch, like jolts of Chakra were released into her system with his every look, every careful brush of his fingers against her skin. How long had she been numb to the warmth, only to have every sense brought back by this seemingly simple action? She wanted to stay like that, to lie to herself and believe that _it_–_they_, were possible, in spite of everything that stood against them at that moment.

But in the end, she knew the truth–about herself, about the fleeting warmth, the little sparks in his fingers, and the fire in his lips. It wouldn't last. It couldn't. Good things never stayed for long in their war-torn world, especially not for her.

"Sakura, I…" Shikamaru started, his hand gently tracing the side of her face, achingly, longingly. Sakura pressed her fingers to his lips, knowing what he would say, and wishing that he wouldn't.

_I'm sorry…_she could already see the words forming on his lips. He regretted it. Oh God, he regretted kissing her. Whatever had come over him was gone, spent like a firecracker, or a candle suddenly snuffed out by his insufferable reasoning. Sakura probably could have said something, told him off in some way, or at least tried to get a little bit of her own back after such a violent breach in professionalism.

Instead, she did something she hadn't done since she was a child, in the time before the wars.

She ran.


	7. Chapter 7 : Ame

_Thoughts..._

and _Flashbacks_ are also in italics. Sorry so confusing.

* * *

Chapter 7 : Ame

One Year Prior...

_Sakura remembered the feeling of twisted limbs, aching, the heavy weight of someone else on top of her. She opened her eyes and the tiny, icy drops of water hit them, causing her to blink._

_**Kakashi**__…Sakura rolled him off of her and onto his side, her hands so slick with blood and tears that she couldn't tell who was more injured–her or him._

"_Sensei?!" She shook him, slapping the side of his face, trying to get his eyes to open. That's when she noticed the kunai sticking out of the back of his head. Her breathing hitched, and her hands froze, even though her fingers twitched here and there, already knowing what they were about to do._

_Without thinking, Sakura drew chakra into her left hand, reaching for the handle of the kunai with her right._

_**This is gonna be messy…**__she remembered thinking._

* * *

"Stop," Sakura told her memories to still as she landed on the rain slick balcony of her apartment, "we did that once, we're not doing it again."

Sakura wrung out her long hair over the railing and stepped inside the living area. She supposed that, being a single woman, she should have set a good example and regularly locked her doors, but it wasn't a habit that ever really stuck with her. Any idiot burglar who broke into her house would get more than they bargained for, especially if they woke her during one of the few times she actually managed to sleep. Her aim was off when she was groggy, which often made for quite a mess on the receiving end, as Kakashi knew well.

_Poor old man..._Sakura sighed, peeling off her clothes and tossing them onto the floor on the way to her bathroom. She turned the shower on, running her hand in the water as she tried to distract herself, keeping herself from analyzing everything that had just happened.

Shikamaru Nara was one of the leading intelligence officers in the country, a strategist to rival even Ibiki. He had made Anbu the year before Sakura, and they had been put in teams together several times over the years since Sakura's entry into the elite ranks. Sakura recalled several particularly difficult missions two years ago where Nara was more than helpful to the cause. He'd saved her, usually from near misses, tiny cracks in her guard that she didn't know were even there–and he never said a word about it. He never asked for thanks, he simply covered her back. It appeared now that he hadn't stopped.

_For a genius, he sure is an idiot..._It had been strange to be in sync with a team mate who wasn't a clone, and frankly, the concept had caused Sakura to discuss it with Ichi and Ni on more than one occasion.

"_I think he's cute," Ni had said._

"_You think everyone is cute," Ichi had growled._

Despite Sakura's best guesses, she couldn't seem to figure out the connection until the last mission they had together, well over a year ago now, when she had caught him staring at her.

She had been on watch, and he was suppose to be off taking a smoke, or whatever it was that strategists did to think, and when she looked around, there he was just gazing at her. At the time she had written it off as him just staring into space, but even then she supposed, a small part of her knew that wasn't the case.

Once the water was finally hot, Sakura stepped carefully into the shower, trying to let it wash away all her worries and cares. She tried to let everything go, running down the drain and out of her weary hands. All the blood she could still imagine on her hands, all the sounds, smells, and faces…

_Especially the faces…_Sakura covered her eyes with her hands, trying to block out the images in her mind that, unlike their originals, simply refused to die.

* * *

_It had been raining very hard as she tried, stubbornly to save Kakashi's life, with nothing but mud and chakra to clot the wound and ward off infection. Shikamaru's team had come upon them, and Choiji and Ino had been sent back with Kakashi to the village. She remembered Shikamaru asking if she was alright, if she could fight, that they needed her. She didn't remember what direction they traveled, only that when they got there, it was too late._

_It had been a political convoy from sand. A controversial cousin to the Kazekage, and a seemingly simple escort detail for the fire country ranks. But something had gone wrong. The convoy lay in ruin, charred and broken in the middle of the forest, just off the beaten path. It was empty, Shikamaru said, so the initial prospect of survivors looked good at first._

_That's when they found her. A Konoha Jonin with straight black hair and pale snowy skin. The Jonin had been pinned to a tree several hundred yards away by a long slender blade that protruding from her chest. Her face had been frozen in such…__**sickening**__ agony._

"_They took her eyes." Shikamaru scowled darkly, gently turning Hinata's still face into the light for the others to see..._

Sakura shut off the water and grabbed a towel. She needed another mission. Now. She needed to get out of here, out of the village; she didn't care where, so long as it took her out of fire country. It had been a year, a full twelve months, and the barriers Sakura had erected in her mind were crumbling a little more every time she stood still enough to think. So, to Sakura at least, the solution was simple.

_Don't stop. Keep moving. Don't think..._Sakura told herself.

She dressed quickly and stuffed some clothes into her travel pack. She was just reaching for the door when it opened, and the painful memory of that awful night suddenly hit her full force as the only other person who had been there stepped through her front door.

"Shikamaru…" She shuddered involuntarily, taking a step back, her hand going to her head as she tried in vain to push back the memories, to lock them back in the dark little corners of her mind that they were starting to leak from.

_Please. Please don't do this..._She pleaded with her thoughts, but they didn't listen. They just kept trickling out, holes in a crumbling damn. Sakura could feel the larger structure of her walls starting to break.

"Going somewhere?" He stepped forward, closing the door behind him. He didn't look like he was open to discussing anything. In fact, he looked downright pissed.

Sakura dropped her bag, the image of Hinata's empty, dark face staring back at her in her mind, impossible to remove. It was branded there. So deeply that she could almost smell the wet, burning scent of charred skin, and bones. Why would shinobi take _eyes_? Why would anyone hurt Hinata, of all people? She was the gentlest person in the world, she hadn't even tried to kill her enemies, only incapacitate them. There had been no reason for such brutality, even if she had attacked them.

"Why did they take her eyes?" Sakura whispered, her unfocused eyes darting to and fro as she desperately tried to find her bearings, "Hinata…why did they take you…"

Then she was falling. Down and down, into the darkness, into the blackness and the shadows.

This time, however, the shadows broke her fall.


	8. Chapter 8 : Kurohana

Chapter 8 : Kurohana

She fell, limp, collapsing like a puppet whose strings had been slashed, and he had to rush forward to catch her before she hit the floor.

"Sakura," Shikamaru whispered, cradling her gently in his arms. She was so strong physically that he supposed no one ever thought to look much farther beyond that, beyond her inhuman strength. They all probably actually thought the girl was actually made of metal for all the emotion she kept at bay.

_I noticed…_Shikamaru remembered grimly how he'd noted each crack in her calm façade ever since they were Chunin, fascinated by the amount of pressure it had finally taken for the mask to shatter.

Naruto had left when Sakura was sixteen, creating a small barrier between her and every other person she encountered since. Even when she joined team Kurenai after the Jonin exams at seventeen Hinata was certainly aware that there was always a point, somewhere, that Sakura would not allow anyone to go...no matter how much she seemed to love, or trust them.

At first, Shikamaru had thought the little hairline cracks in her usual cheer were simply a defense mechanism, a way of protecting herself until she could get over Naruto's abandonment of the village–but even with the addition of time, and a new family to look after her, the cracks remained.

They actually got worse when Sakura turned eighteen, as Ibiki dragged her into the muddy grey areas of Anbu operations and missions. The cracks in Sakura became more pronounced then, more obvious, even to Kakashi–who never seemed to notice anything. As always, Shikamaru chalked it up to Sakura's way of dealing with it all, and didn't think any more about it.

Then, early last year, in the spring, Hinata and Kiba took an escort mission for a sand politician traveling to Konoha. Shikamaru remembered the event with a dark glass over each and every image, wishing he could find a way to forget like Shino, or drown himself in something else like Sakura and Kakashi. Sakura and Kakashi had been in-route that night when Kakashi was injured. It was only by chance that Shikamaru happened by with his own team, and he still thought it a sad bit of luck on all fronts.

Sakura hadn't been injured that badly by the fall. She was strong, a formidable shinobi–so Shikamaru made the argument that it was only a logical choice to split up the teams, carry back the wounded, and continue on with the strongest fighters.

_Such an idiot…_Shikamaru shook his head as he glanced across the living room at Sakura's sleeping form. He couldn't bring himself to enter her bedroom without her permission, so he'd opted for laying her down gently on the couch. He watched her sleep, and thought about how peaceful and unassuming she managed to look when she was unconscious.

_Bet __that doesn't happen often…_He closed his eyes again, trying to sort out the muddle of images and emotions that threatened to cloud his reason.

He regretted breaking up the teams now, or rather, he regretted not sending Sakura back with Kakashi that night. True, he didn't know what was awaiting them, but then again, none of them knew much of anything at the time.

_But I wish we had…_

Sakura whimpered, and Shikamaru stood, walking over to her and crouching down beside the couch. Sakura was gasping, trying to say something, but it appeared to be difficult. Shikamaru moved closer, trying to hear her, alarmed at how pale her skin was growing and how blue her lips were suddenly becoming.

"Sakura," Shikamaru pleaded, "what's wrong?"

"My…bag…" Sakura's voice teetered on the edge cracking. She was in pain. The realization made Shikamaru stop. He knew that sound, the crack in her voice, and the revelation chilled him in a way that nothing else could.

_Bag, she said bag...__The travel pouch…_Shikamaru ran to the front hallway and scooped up the hastily packed travel satchel, pressing it into her already unsteady hands. Sakura wrenched the bag open and began digging through it slowly, messily, tossing out a few odd looking vials and a needle. Shikamaru waited until she'd missed the vein in her arm two times before taking the syringe from her shaky fingers and doing it for her.

"Here," He inserted the needle into her bicep, injecting the contents slowly, and carefully into her vein. He wasn't a stranger to the process. He'd had to do this before.

_Once…_Shikamaru pulled out the needle, capping the used syringe and setting it aside as he covered the small wound with his hand, waiting for it to clot. Sakura's teeth clenched, but she stayed quiet, waiting for the medicine to take effect. God, she hated this part. Hated how much the stupid drug hurt as it went through her bloodstream, banging around in her veins, leaving bruises so small and painful that you wouldn't be able to see them except under a microscope.

Shikamaru studied the vial Sakura had used, rolling it around between his fingers. He hadn't been aware Tsunade had developed a treatment for it.

"I thought Tsunade said it would dissipate." Shikamaru mumbled.

"It hasn't." Sakura hissed from behind clenched teeth. Shikamaru nodded, glancing at the other two vials on the table as he took stock of Sakura's medical stores. One painkiller, which he assumed was for her left leg, and one unmarked vial, the color of which reminded him of deep blue ink.

"This version is different than the first one." Shikamaru commented, setting the vial down, "The particles seem smaller, it seems to have a lower viscosity than the herbal draft."

"Yeah, well, that happens when you actually have proper equipment." Sakura said softly, her eyes half-closed in pain.

Shikamaru sighed, "No amount of equipment would have saved them, Sakura. Even Shizune said so."

Sakura hissed at his words, clearly disagreeing.

"I gave it to everyone. It worked for you and me, why not anyone else?" Sakura grumbled, "I must have made a mistake. Some tiny, stupid mistake."

"If you had, I wouldn't be here," Shikamaru told her, solemnly. He pressed the cool skin of his palm to her cheek, trying to see if there was anything he could do to ease the pain of the injection, but Sakura only shook her head. She exhaled, painfully, telling him she would be fine in a moment. Shikamaru wondered now if all the time that Sakura had lost in her mission reports was due to this, and not to illicit activities of her own agenda. The poison, black blossom powder, hadn't changed much since he'd last encountered it. It used to be a naturally occurring compound in plants in to the North West, far from fire country. Then, one day, there started to be talk, whispers of entire villages just falling off the map. Places that just stopped, entire communities of people simply collapsing, and never getting up again. People thought it was a curse. Of course, looking at what it was doing to Sakura, Shikamaru couldn't exactly disagree.

"Why did you turn in a finger for your report?" Shikamaru asked finally. Sakura's body relaxed a little bit, sinking into the couch at a more natural angle. Shikamaru took it as a good sign.

"I didn't exactly have time," Sakura panted, starting to get her breath back, "to do an autopsy…"

"Whose finger is it?" Shikamaru asked.

"The target."

"And the rest of him?"

"That was all I found." Sakura coughed.

_So, someone else was there before us..._Shikamaru thought.

"Does Tsunade know?" Shikamaru motioned to the medical vials. Sakura shrugged, which was neither a yes, nor a no.

"If she doesn't, would you be the one to tell her?" Sakura smirked. Shikamaru looked up at her.

"Don't play with me, Sakura," Shikamaru said sternly, "you're more prone to make mistakes if you–"

"If I'm what? Drugged? That doesn't seem to bother Ibiki." Sakura sneered.

"_Yet_." He told her, "Tsunade is the only one who knows the entire details of our mission to the mountains excluding you and I. One word and Ibiki-san would have you committed to the hospital for medical observation. You're the only person on or off record to survive with the poison _still_ active in their system. Don't take for granted the fact that you still have friends willing to lie for you."

"I never asked for them to suspend my life like this." Sakura said it so softly that is was almost a sob.

Shikamaru immediately regretted his words. Seeing Sakura in this state, what she had been reduced to; going on missions doped all to hell, and half-alive. He didn't want to imagine what it was like for her, dealing with the side effects of the poison every day, hallucinations, and nightmares coming at her whenever her white cell count happen to dip below a hundred-million…

_All she has to do is lose half a liter of plasma and it could kill her… _Shikamaru shuddered at the thought. He knew coming back from a mission with two or more pints of blood still circulating was a major achievement, especially in black opts. Like it or not, massive blood loss was, more or less, an expectation in their line of work.

There was a reason the poison went by the name _Kurohana_, and there was a reason that no one actually called it that. The word was sacred, like an ancestor, a spirit, or a priest. It was the name of the first village that the air born powder had decimated, now four years buried just inside the border.

_It had help, though, didn't it?_ Shikamaru clenched a fist, remembering the images of the people, just lying in the streets, some of them still holding onto their children, their laundry falling out of their hands, food just sitting untouched on still set tables. It had been the first mission he had ever been on with Sakura. Their first mission and she and half of their team nearly ended up dead because of it. He nearly lost her then, and he was so close to loosing her now, but this time it wasn't just the poison he had to contend with.

"They suspended it to help us understand it. You got a second chance that several of the others didn't, so why don't you do Tetsuyama and Chon a favor and do something with it instead of moping about like a petulant child." Shikamaru hissed.

He knew shouldn't have snapped. It wasn't even necessarily Sakura's fault he was angry. He was just remembering things, so many things he that didn't want to, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it except–lash out.

Sakura, however, knew exactly what she was going to do, and she did it with a great deal of personal satisfaction, despite the pain the medicine was still causing her.

The look on Shikamaru's face as her fist came at him was absolutely _priceless_.

_Sticks and stones, Nara-san…_Sakura smirked, eying her handy work a moment later with pride.

Shikamaru was dragging himself out of the living room wall that bordered Sakura's bedroom now, brushing drywall off of himself, and looking none too pleased in the process.

_Trouble, trouble, trouble…_Shikamaru grumbled.

"I am _not_ a petulant child–" Sakura growled. Of all things, Haruno Sakura had not been especially known for her patient and understanding nature.

"Which you are proving so well." Shikamaru shook the wall dust from his dark hair, brushing off his shoulders and vest, "I'm not paying for that, by the way."

"That," Sakura pointed to the wall, "is your invitation to leave, lieutenant."

"I can't. You threatened me. If I leave, I'll have to write a report." Shikamaru frowned, wiping the last of the drywall from his face and arms.

"And you'd hate that, being forced to do some actual fucking work!" Sakura yelled, "you're a lazy mother-fucking _asshole_!"

Shikamaru couldn't help himself. Sakura had set herself up, and being the intelligent strategist that he was, Shikamaru _had_ to take full tactical advantage.

"We're leaving my _ass_ out of this, amazing though it may be," Shikamaru replied smartly.

Silence.

The shocked look on Sakura's face was beyond laughable, and just what Shikamaru had been going for. In that split second Sakura's mood had changed, even if only just for a moment, and the sight of it made Shikamaru almost sigh in a strange sort of contentment. The blushing cherry color rising to her cheeks, the slight doubtful flicker of her eyes, the worry that brushed past before you even knew it was there.

_God, I love that…_The intricacies, the tiny weavings that made her so human. He needed, and wanted that, so badly–to have something that real at his fingertips.

"What is it that you want, Shikamaru?" Sakura took a shaky step back, bracing herself as though for an attack, though she didn't know what to expect. There was unusual, strange warmth in Shikamaru's eyes as he looked at her now. Warmth that threatened to ignite something very eager and potent inside her, and despite herself–Sakura was afraid. She could feel her heart beating, actually _beating_, hard against her chest during the long moment it took Shikamaru to cross the room and press her up against the wall.

"I want," His lips lingered over hers, brushing her cheek in a gentle caress of his fingers as he tried to tell her just how much he cared for her, how long he'd loved her, and how long he would love her if she would only let him.

Sakura's hand suddenly came up, grabbing hold of the collar of his vest, and Shikamaru stiffened, afraid of what she would do. It wasn't until she pulled herself closer, pressing her lips up against his in a soft and tender kiss that he finally understood–

He wasn't the only one.

* * *

Don't cry! Story not over! Just getting warmed up! [Said as Shiranami plots evilly in her war room…maniacal laughter follows…]


	9. Chapter 9 : Narabi

Special thanks to SasoLOVE111, TroubledFred, and Safrael, for being my very first fans and constantly giving me reasons to continue this. Also thanks to awesome new reviewers SakuraPetal101, makulit ka kasi, and RozenMaiden14. Safrael…I wasn't kidding when I said I would probably use your idea…read on. Thanks so much to everyone who fav'd and Alert'd–you guys are awesome.

~Shiranami

* * *

Chapter 9 : Narabi

When she opened her eyes, the world was different. It was warm, soft, and hazy–as if the sharp edges had all but disappeared, worn down and pushed aside by the presence of something new. It now enveloped her, drawing her closer–tight, and possessively. The muscles of Shikamaru's arm flexed a little against her skin, and she smiled, knowing he was awake as she buried herself deeper in his embrace.

They traced each other's scars in the moonlight, every line, every story laid bare for the other to see.

"This," Shikamaru gently followed the tightly knit skin of an old wound running the length of Sakura's collar bone, over her shoulder and down her arm. Sakura bit back a gasp at the sensation of Shikamaru's fingers drawing across her skin. Little pricks of hot and cold spread from his touch and down her body, almost like he was kissing her, inch by agonizing inch.

_How the hell does he do that?_ Sakura grumbled.

"Kiba's fault, Shino and Hinata never let him forget it," Sakura chuckled, eyeing the selected mark with a reminiscent air, "It was the first mission our team had after the Jonin exams. We were all resting in the trees; tired and drained, thinking the worst was over. Shino's bugs were so exhausted they were practically dropping out of the air, and all of us were distracted in one way or another. Kiba, in particular, let his guard down more than he should have. He turned away from the sector he was watching to check on Hinata. When I saw her move, rushing in to save him from the enemy in his blind spot, I panicked, and pushed her out of the way."

Shikamaru kissed the mark with a tenderness that Sakura was almost certain she didn't deserve. Who was she to have him worship each scar as though it were some sign of beauty or strength. All she could see were signs of her own cruelty come back to haunt her, some sort of payback for all the bad karma she'd put out into the universe. Shikamaru kissed her shoulder, drawing her back from her musings, which from the look on his face seemed to be his goal.

"You saved them," Shikamaru stated.

"For a little while." Sakura sighed, closing her eyes. Shikamaru kissed her eyelids, telling her that no one could have stopped it, no matter how strong they were.

"It still doesn't feel real," Sakura said, weaving her arms around Shikamaru's neck as she nestled into him for comfort, "having that big empty room right next to mine, with Akamaru still acting like he doesn't understand why Kiba and Hinata have been gone on that last mission for so long."

Shikamaru let out a tense sigh, going quiet for a long moment before he spoke again.

"You should do something with that room," he suggested finally.

"Like what? It feels wrong to just get another tenant for it, or to use it to store things, or to entertain…I don't know what to do." Sakura replied.

Shikamaru laughed softly in her ear and gently nipped at her earlobe with his teeth, playful.

"_Troublesome_ little kunoichi…you actually gonna make me say it?" He mumbled into her hair, but she could feel him smiling against her skin.

"Say what?" Sakura look at him, perplexed. God, this man was irritating. Almost making her guess what he was thinking and what not. Despite popular belief, extra-sensory-perception was not on her list of many talents.

"You could move into that room, and use this one for, you know, anything that comes about...later." Shikamaru said, cryptically.

_Oh, he is so not talking about what I think he is..._Sakura reached for his face in the dark, trying to figure out whether he was pulling her leg or not.

"Later? Like what _exactly_, Nara?" Sakura growled. Shikamaru chuckled, rolling over on top of her under the sheets, pinning her wrists above her head with his hands as he simply repeated himself.

"For, you know, anything that comes…_later_."

Sakura laughed a little, imagining lazy little pink and brown-haired babies falling asleep all over the floors and furniture of the small apartment. She thought the idea was rather suiting for the space, except for one small little detail.

"I actually think that room would be better suited for _laters,_" Sakura mused, "I feel like Hinata in particular would have liked that. The way Kiba was talking, you would think he was planning for children in litters."

Shikamaru laughed, "Not surprising."

"It always seemed to make Hinata squirm a little bit, so I loved repeating it to her." Sakura smiled. It felt strange, but for some reason it was alright to remember with Shikamaru. He had some strange power over her heart, like his ability to bend applied to more than just physical shadows, but also to the literal darkness in others.

"I think we may have crossed a line here," Sakura snickered as she realized that Shikamaru wasn't letting her up.

"Just one?" Shikamaru kissed her neck with an aching slowness, attempting to refresh her memory, "I was under the impression that we'd stumbled over several."

Sakura laughed, feeling his arms squeezing her closer, recalling the exchange of energy, the little shocks of chakra she got whenever Shikamaru touched her. She smiled, wondering what Akamaru would deduce when he came home to find a trail of clothing from the living room to her bedroom.

_He's smart; he'll figure it out…_

Akamaru liked people, even more than Sakura had when she was younger and still unmarred by years of fighting them. The addition of a new scent to the ninja dog's surroundings would make him happy, elated even, if a fur-ball could have such an emotion. Sakura knew it would remind him of Kiba and Hinata. With the mingled fragrances and scents, he would conclude that something new was forming, something special.

_Haven't had that in a while…_Sakura quietly whimpered into Shikamaru's shoulder, and she knew in an instant that he understood. He held her close and murmured to her in a whisper, gently running his fingers through her hair as he spoke.

"I'm not going anywhere, Sakura," He promised. He said it again and again and again, perhaps hoping that repetition would make her believe it. But Sakura couldn't help but wonder if he knew what he was promising. He couldn't control what happened on this mission or that, anymore than she could. Eventually there would be situations they would come across on an assignment or in battle that would throw them, perhaps be more than they could handle–just like it threw Hinata and Kiba.

"You can't promise that." Sakura's voice nearly broke at the idea. Losing him, not to another woman, or to the wearing march of time, but to something unexpected and tragic would be terrible. It was almost as if something vile and unforeseen was forever reaching out from the darkness to steal that which she loved.

This was different, though, different than all the other things that had been taken from her, because with Shikamaru, she knew, she wouldn't be able to survive it. Not this time.

"I'm a genius," Shikamaru snickered, "I can promise a lot of things."

Then, leaning down so that his lips brushed against hers, he said, "I swear, Sakura. You will not lose me."

"Okay," Sakura agreed in a whisper, but all the while inside her mind the only thought going through her head was a single, simple promise to herself.

_I'll make sure of it._

* * *

Akamaru opened his eyes a bit, glancing up at the young man he'd hunted down every night for the past year.

"Cheers," Shino gurgled slightly, spilling a bit of his sake onto his sleeve. A few of his bugs immediately soaked it up, teetering across the counter in crooked lines as the alcohol twisted their sense of direction.

The barman gave the young man's canine companion a look, telling him that he was worried. Akamaru got up, pulled Shino's wallet from the young man's back pocket with his teeth and laid it on the counter for the barman to settle the tab. It was a strange, but usual occurrence for them, almost as common as night and day for the bars Shino frequented. The barmen weren't sure exactly when it had happened, but the large white dog had started showing up inside the establishments almost as soon as the Aburame youth did.

Of course, the pup was only looking for Shino, but no one had known that until the first night the dog had found him. The tradition seemed to start then, with the canine pulling out the young man's wallet, dragging him down off the stool, and carrying him home. The only thing the bar owners couldn't stand was the bugs, which Shino seemed to shed like lice when he was drunk.

The bugs were harmless enough when inebriated, but when they came to, they were often confused, attacking customers or even the bar owners themselves. It had gotten so bad that there were really only a few places that would take him anymore, and this was one of them.

After taking out the correct amount, the barman picked up a heavy aluminum box from under the counter and scooped up the Aburame man's befuddled beetles into it for safekeeping. Shino laughed.

"They're so sloshed," the young man slurred, "should've cut em' off…"

"I tried." The barman grumbled, glaring at a few of his more foolish patrons. It had become a bit of a cruel and pitiful joke to buy drinks for the young Aburame man at bars where new Jonin came upon him.

It was considered good luck now days, if you were a new Jonin, to buy the Aburame bug master a beer, or a bottle of sake. Good luck because of the scar that was rumored to go halfway down his chest, but no further. An investment in the fortune that had somehow made him the sole survivor of that bloody battle on fire soil over one year ago, the massacre of an entire unit of leaf shinobi, of which two of his teammates were part, and from which only he had emerged–barely alive.

The barman frowned, watching the large white dog slide the drunken man onto his back and carry him out of the bar.

The price to become a hero was just too high.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Tsunade glanced up at Ibiki from the scroll he had just laid out before her. It's contents were unexpected, and frankly–alarming.

"Haruno's last mission only confirmed it."

"I can't send her. Not there, not after what happened last time," Tsunade shook her head.

"She's the only one who can withstand–"

"For now," Tsunade growled, warning her chief intelligence officer that he was treading on very shaky ground.

"Four Anbu then–my pick."

"Done," Tsunade shoved the scroll back in Ibiki's hands, covering her eyes with her fingers, "have your team assembled within the hour. We have a very small window of opportunity for this, Ibiki. I won't have us failing now, not after all this."

_Not after everything I put her through…_Tsunade thought.

"Hai, Hokage-sama," Ibiki bowed his head slightly, rolling up the scroll in one swift movement, "And that other subject I inquired about earlier?"

"Later," Tsunade said, head in her hands.

There was no time to lose.


	10. Chapter 10 : Ma akumu

Special thanks to all my wonderful readers, Safrael in particular who is so patient with me, and thank you all for waiting for me to figure out where Sakura and Shikamaru are going in the rest of this story. So, now that I know what I'm writing again (at least for a little bit), this is for you.

With love,

Shiranami

Chp 10: Ma akumu 

_She wasn't beside him anymore; he could feel that even before he opened his eyes. The side where she had been was growing cold, leaving nothing but a large empty space where another body should have been._

_**Sakura…**__Shikamaru tried to sit up, but his sides cried out in agony from the sudden movement. He didn't scream, but instead grunted, quietly grinding his teeth as he pulled himself up to sit, slowly taking stock of the damage. His ribs were broken, and several of his fingers had been set into splints. He'd have a hard time bending shadows with only one hand._

_**Where am I?**__… Shikamaru couldn't remember. His head was splitting and there was a strange, sickly dizziness there that refused to dissipate, no matter how many pressure points he tried. He wasn't at home, and he didn't recognize the room, walls, or floor where he lay. Was it a mission? He was on a mission, yes, that was it. A mission to…where was this place? All he could see was the aged wood of a small village house with a fire pit in the middle. There must have been rain at some point because a small trickle of water was dripping down onto his forehead from a hole in the thatching._

_He remembered now. There had been four of them:_

_Haruno,_

_Tetsuyama, _

_Shon,_

_And him. _

_He supposed he was an idiot for wondering why Ibiki would put an Anbu like Haruno on a simple intelligence mission, but admittedly he was a bit blind there. There always seemed to be a bit of a psychological interference with his logic where Haruno was concerned, and what was worse, it seemed to be happening more often lately. It was starting to become–_

_**Troublesome…**Shikamaru groaned._

_Tetsuyama and Shon, though, those two were as green as Lee's youthfully blinding ensemble. They weren't a logical choice for an intelligence mission, not as much as Haruno or himself, and that searingly obvious fact was enough to bother him and get the gears turning. _

_Sending those two was like dangling a carrot in front of an animal to lead it to slaughter. Being so awed by the chance to go on a C-Rank mission had blotted out their normally sharp senses and self-preservational instincts. The poor stupid mews didn't even have the sense to question it, any of it._

_Shon was barely twenty, the last of a small, inconsequential clan with thick spectacles, brown hair, and a quick brain. She'd almost been able to beat Shikamaru at shoji once, and he respected her for it, even almost let her win a few times, which was unheard of for him. He couldn't help but adopt the kid, really. With the team he'd gone through Genin training with, he had a soft spot for dorks, whether he wanted to or not._

_Tetsuyama was fresh from the jounin exams, and barely eighteen. He had bright teal eyes, like rainwater, and his disposition was always calming and serene. He wasn't as quick as Shon but he had a determined spirit and a nasty smoking habit that endeared him enough to Shikamaru to convince him to take him along. _

_Shikamaru regretted not wasting energy to argue with the boy. He knew he would've been tired and cross afterwards, but then Tetsuyama probably wouldn't have been with them then._

_Shikamaru sighed._

_The mission statement had been simple: Go to the village, deliver a message from the Hokage, and return with a response. So far, the only part they had got right was "go to the village". It was just too bad there wasn't any part of the village left._

_Tetsuyama and Shon were not there, nor was there any sign that they ever had been, save for their equipment. Shikamaru was lying on a bed made of their packs, and the very idea of it made something in him wrentch. It made him feel cold to think about it, icy even. He felt his blood turning solid in his veins as fuzzy thoughts slowly began to matriculate into larger, vivid, facts._

_Shikamaru touched a patch on Tetsuyama's pack and could almost see them, Shon and Tetsuyama, as they prepared to enter the shaft in the well, ropes tied to their waists with their safety lines knotted off on him and Haruno. Shikamaru had hammered several anchors into the ground behind them, just to be safe. He even had extra ropes running along side the main ones in case one should break or be cut by the dark, sharp stones that were plentiful in that part of the mountains._

"_I can't wait to see the bottom," Shon laughed as she pushed off. She loved grappling; said it made her feel like she was flying. Tetsuyama followed with a wink at Shikamaru, which made him laugh a little (a joke between gentlemen, and not to be repeated) before disappearing down into the darkness of the shaft._

_The shaft had supposedly been a well at some point, the only one in the village. Now, what had once been a beautiful work of indigenous art was no more than a large, jagged hole that went a hundred feet deep beneath muddy snow and blackened rock._

"_We need to find __**something**__," Sakura whispered to Shikamaru as they gave Shon and Tetsuyama a little more rope, "Things like this don't just happen…not on their own."_

_Shikamaru had merely nodded at the time, but even he had been largely entertaining suspicions of his own since their unhappy arrival in the silent little town. No one outside knew exactly what had happened to the tiny mountain village. The locals, who resided several tens of miles down the mountain, knew the place as 'Zetsumei' ("death/end of life"). The nameplate above the village gate, however, read something far different_:

**Kurohana.**

_What was known was only what had been apparent. Messenger birds had been disappearing in the area for the better part of the past several weeks. At first it was just thought to be a mistake, a case of the birds getting lost, or the village being too snowed in to be found. _

_Weeks went by. _

_No birds._

_It didn't take long to figure out why the birds weren't coming back. _

_**Should've seen it …**__Shikamaru put his face in his hands, chiding himself for not seeing the signs earlier._

_Just after they had entered the main gate, hundreds of beautiful, still, feathery-bodies lay silent and cold across icy roofs and snow covered houses, littering the fences and gardens, marring the view for miles. Among them the quiet forms of adults, children, and even elders lay uncovered and forgotten in the village streets._

"_It's as though they just…fell, right where they were. All at the same time." Tetsuyama had said. _

_It was true. Even Shikamaru had to agree. The evidence was all too clear as to what direction the story had veered, he just didn't know how it had started yet._

_A woman carrying freshly cleaned laundry had fallen on top of her two children, as though they had all been walking side by side down the street. Sakura checked them, each and every body, looking for signs…for answers. Eventually, Shikamaru had to pull rank and tell her to stop, which she didn't seem to happy about. _

_He still had the scar to prove it._

_They checked the villages' water source._

_The well, as it turned out, was empty, and both Shon and Tetsuyama had tasted the iron sweet water at its bottom it to do a simple compound analysis. They reported that the water was saturated with a sort of ash like substance, like a pollen of some sort. Further investigation found that the blue lotus blossoms that had been artificially grown in the village for trade were at fault for the pollen. _

_If only they'd known what they'd found._

_Maybe could have saved a few…_Shikamaru thought, staring up at the ceiling in Sakura's room.

It was a pleasant room, he'd decided, though rather bare of most of the memorabilia that others of the Elite had a tendency to display. Neji's quarters at the Hyuga compound contained a rather daunting collection of weaponry and pressure point charts. Though, when one was married to a weapons mistress, Shikamaru supposed there was just cause to have an overabundance of blades.

Sakura's walls seemed so bare to him, sad, now that he looked at them. They were pale and empty with small bright shapes imprinted on the paint that hinted at the former presence of frames. He'd heard that Sakura had gone to some extremes in her mourning for her team, but he supposed he hadn't quite believed the rumors.

_She's running from them. The memories…_Shikamaru put his hands behind his head on the pillow he had claimed from Sakura's bed. Sakura wasn't ready to start picking up the pieces of her life just yet, her efforts to leave this evening proved that undeniably, but perhaps she could move a little bit closer to the right direction. Away from the shroud and bleeding heart she'd been wearing these past few years, perhaps towards a happier life.

_With you, are you kidding? _Shikamaru sighed. He hated it when doubt cut in. It was an annoying part of the human thought process, and he rather hated it to the point of wanting to pinpoint the location of such thoughts and dig them out with a senbon–brain damage be damned.

He hadn't thought of what life for Sakura and him would actually be like, mostly because he had never allowed himself the luxury of even believing it was possible. What if he got killed in action? What if she did? What if, months-down-the-line, she gave in to her sadness again and never resurfaced?

_What if I'm not enough…_Shikamaru closed his eyes. He didn't know if he could bear to lose Sakura again, not to life, or death, or any semblance of the two. She was the only reason he'd stayed in intelligence for so long, and perhaps the only reason he still agreed to plan many of Ibiki's darker missions, knowing Sakura might be the one to get hooked into them. He'd tried so hard to make his reconnaissance perfect, leaving nothing to chance, and no path unexplored. He didn't want her to take any unnecessary risks…even if she did so on her own anyway.

_Troublesome woman…_Shikamaru didn't think he was the first man to apply this observation to Haruno Sakura–not that she would ever know.

_Hopefully_...He thought.

It was always like this with people. The more you got attached, the more trouble you were in for. Shikamaru had seen it with his parents, and he'd always thought he'd never care for it himself. Then one day he looked up and she was standing there, in full Anbu gear, keeping watch at the edge of their camp, and for some reason it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. He stared so long that his cigarette burned down to his fingers, which caused him to curse, and Sakura to turn. She saw him looking at her.

After that, everything was pretty much downhill for him. He wanted to know where she was, what mission she was on, if she'd been hurt, everything. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most trouble he could possibly be in, Haruno Sakura was a twenty.

_Big trouble…_Shikamaru thought to himself as he lay there on the bed, raking in the scent of the dark pink hair lying softly on his shoulder_…__**really**__ big trouble._

There was a knock at the door. Ni looked up from the full pot of coffee she was downing (still in the pot), and Ichi grabbed a kunai from her side out of instinct. Sakura rolled her eyes and went to the door, pressing her hand to the frame to see who it was.

_Familiar chakra…strong and blue…threads of impatient silver running through it…_Sakura smirked.

_Neji_...

"Haven't we fought him before?" Ni whispered to Ichi. Ichi only grunted, which probably meant said person had probably not enjoyed being thrown through geography any more than Kakashi had.

Sakura abruptly opened the door.

"Hyuga-san," She greeted Neji with a fake smile complimented by an overly false sense of welcome.

_Oh yeah, let's be sarcastic with an armed Hygua..._Ichi sneered, causing Ni to giggle. To Sakura it seemed clear that only _one_ of her better halves had consumed their pot of coffee this morning.

"Can I help you?" Sakura responded politely to the visitor.

"Hn," Neji eyed the two clones behind Sakura, who were in varying degrees of defensive formation. Sakura had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at their hijinks.

"Are they going to attack me?" Neji looked at Ichi and Ni, thoughtfully, but unconcerned.

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

Neji gave her a look.

"Fine, then stay outside and you should be fine," Sakura answered with a small smile.

"I have been sent to collect Intelligence officer Nara for mission briefing. Departure is immediate, he has five minutes to pack," The Hyuga reported stiffly.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. Never mind that she was pretty sure Shikamaru hadn't been on the active duty roster for field work in the past year.

"What makes you think that he would be _here_, Hyuga?"

"Tenten seemed to think it would be a likely place to look if he wasn't at headquarters or home." Neji said bluntly, his all knowing smirk cracking a little in the corner of his mouth.

_Gonna kill Tenten…_Sakura glared.

"You're contemplating the homicide of my spouse'," Neji stated, annoyed, "–again."

Well _damn_-it if he couldn't just read her like a book.

"And?" Sakura asked, leaning against the doorway casually.

"I would remind you I can see through concrete. There would be no where to hide," Neji said in a more serious tone.

Sakura smirked. She supposed it made him feel better to threaten a bloody vengeance on her and all of her house if and when she so much as _pondered_ giving Tenten a paper-cut.

"We're a small house, I don't think vengeance would really take that long," Ni commented, answering Sakura's thoughts out loud.

Neji's eyes flashed dangerously to Ni, causing her to hide behind Ichi, who was still holding a kunai in her hand, albeit loosely. Sakura was the only one who heard the slight chuckle from the generally stoic Hyuga, and therefore knew he was joking. His humor had improved with Tenten's presence, and it had made him more enjoyable to work with when it came down to the dirty-thankless parts of their jobs.

"Hang on," Sakura closed the door slightly, giving both Ichi and Ni a warning look as she did so.

_No blood on the carpet…_Sakura told them. Ni looked confused, but Ichi merely huffed and crossed her arms, as if all of her fun had now been ruined for the day.

_You'll survive…_Sakura gently padded towards her bedroom, quietly turning the knob as she slipped inside. It was still dark in her room, her curtains still closed out of habit, but even in the dimness Sakura could make out a form, fully dressed and wide awake, sitting lazily on the side of the bed staring at something in his hand.

Sakura sat down next to him, moving closer to see what he was looking at. It was that picture of team kurenai that she couldn't get rid of, the one of them all after their jounin exams, the one from her nightstand.

Sakura sighed, leaning on Shikamaru's shoulder and looping her arm through his as though to hold on to him a little longer.

"Don't go." She whispered, pleading. Shikamaru turned to her in the darkness of the room and gently, longingly, kissed the top of her head.

"Okay…" He whispered back. Sakura looked up at him, trying to figure out what she should say, what she would have wanted to say if she knew he was never coming back.

"We can't treat every mission like the end of the world." Shikamaru kissed her softly, "if we do, there's no room left for living in it."

"You promised me." Sakura reminded him.

"I keep my promises." He gently stroked her hand, pressing it to his chest, where he kept it for a moment, reveling in the warmth of her skin. Sakura could feel his heart beating beneath her fingertips, life and spark just pumping from his chest, screaming life in every beat.

He laid her down on the bed, gently, always gently, like she were porcelain to him, and not some scarred, broken little girl. He took his kunai and pulled down the corner of her t-shirt, exposing her shoulder. He leaned down and kissed it, making that familiar warmth from the night before begin to grow in Sakura's stomach again. Sakura knew what he was going to do, and frankly, she wasn't scared. She barely felt it when he pressed the blade of the kunai to her skin, drawing a deep and unmistakable mark that surged with the energy of his chakra and that of her blood.

"You didn't flinch." He said, kissing her collarbone as the wound started to bleed. It was deep enough that it would take several minutes to clot, but Sakura wouldn't heal it.

_Not this wound…_ Sakura took his face in her hands then, and brought his eyes up to meet hers. They stared at each other for several long moments, saying a lifetime of words in that single, deep, shared look. Suddenly, Sakura spoke,

"Get home safe. Don't make me come after you."

This made Shikamaru smile.

"Yes ma'am." He said, and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her as though he were trying to savor her, remember her, to make up for all the kisses he would miss while he was gone. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone, trying to pull away, but finding it hard as Sakura's hands went up to his hair.

_Never going to get out of here at this rate…_Shikamaru pulled Sakura into his arms tightly, holding her as hard and as long as he could stand it.

Finally, he couldn't. He released her, kissed her, grabbed his weapons belt and paused in the bedroom doorway, looking back at her. His eyes drank her in for a moment, her shirt, her hair, the new scar he had given her, and her face.

And when the door was closed, and he was gone, remembering that last lingering look of his was all she could do to keep from crying. Silently, Sakura curled up on her bed and tried to breath. All she had to do was breathe. Just keep breathing until he came back and everything would be fine.

_Just breathe…_


	11. Chapter 11: Sutoringusu

Special thanks to my writing buddy Safrael for prodding me along in this, and hey Saf, congrats on being published! As always, many thanks and great appreciation to everyone who fav'd the story and reads. Everything, and all of you helps sustain the small, but eternal, hope that I can one day end up doing this for a living…writing, I mean, not plagiarizing a manga artist's already existing work for my own ends (though you guys seem to enjoy that bit as much as I do). Hehe. This story progresses slowly, but I thank you all for keeping with it. You guys are the reason that we do this, and I thank you for being such patient, and devoted fans. I love you guys!

~Shiranami

* * *

Chapter 11: Sutoringusu

It was a long time before Sakura finally opened her eyes.

_Daylight…_Sakura put an arm over her face as she tried to shield herself. Her vision was cloudy, dim, like she was looking at the world through a river of choppy water. All the colors and slivers of light were flowing into a single river of sight, giving her nothing that her eyes could latch onto, and nothing that could ground her amidst the chaos.

_Dizzy…_Sakura wondered if she'd accidentally grabbed sake instead of the water from her fridge the night before. She wasn't usually one to drink herself into a coma, but having done it for the past seventy-two hours she could definitely see the appeal.

_Nothing hurts…like all the sharp edges are fuzzy…_ The words in her books and scrolls had started to actually swirl together several hours prior, so she could safely assume that a barely conscious cerebral cortex was to blame. Ino had always said that Sakura pushed herself too hard, too much, and that she would eventually "break-down" at some point if she didn't learn how to sleep like the rest of the human race.

_Sleep is for the weak…_Sakura snickered. She stretched, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. Three days Shikamaru had been gone, and it somehow felt like three years.

_Can't take much more of this "rest" stuff…_Tsunade had suspended Sakura from active duty, though she wouldn't give Sakura a straight answer as to why, and demanded the girl show up at the hospital every day for check ups. So far, Sakura had managed to ditch out on two of three schedualed sessions, but she felt that she might have to fake her own death to get out of the third.

_Tempting…very tempting…_Sakura thought.

Gradually, Sakura's sight began to adjust itself on it's own, but her eyes hurt, burning in her sockets as though she'd been asleep for years and not hours. How long had she been asleep, anyway? What had she been doing last night that keep her up so late? Sakura tried to sift through the sandy, heavy recollections of time in her head until she found what she was looking for.

_Research, _Sakura sighed, scratching her head, _Reading far __**too **__much…_Sakura held her head, trying to banish the painful aches that were slowly fading behind her tired eyes. She could barely remember mere bits and pieces of the books and scrolls she had been looking through the night before.

_Aggressive micro-bacterial Orphan Diseases, Biochemical interference, _and _Magnoliophyta Zootoxins_, were just a few of the terms that hadn't quite found their way out of her head just yet. Her brain felt like someone had reached into her skull, plucked out her mind, thrown it in the microwave, cranked the settings up to ten, and pushed "cook".

"Ow," Sakura hissed as she sat up. She half expected Akamaru to jump on top of her at the first sign of life, but he hadn't. In fact, Sakura couldn't even hear him breathing. With her eyes still adjusting, and her room doused in a waxy, painfully bright light, Sakura leaned forward, trying to find any sign of fur lying around on top of her bed.

"Akamaru?" Sakura whispered, feeling around in the blinding light for anything that might tell her he was near. After a moment, Sakura finally came to understand what was wrong with the situation.

She wasn't in her room.

In fact, Sakura wasn't even in her apartment, or any building, as far as she could tell.

Looking about, she could tell only that she was sitting beneath a large tree in a wide-open field; similar to those she traversed in the western mountains, when missions had brought her there. The place looked both familiar and eerie in the same moment, as if it were an old-friend returned to her with dark scars that ran too deep to fix.

_Strange…_Sakura thought, trying to take it all in. The air took on an odd, unusual fragrance just then. It grew heavy, smoky, foul with the smell of rotting wood and charred stone.

_Why do I feel like I've seen this before?_ Sakura raised her head, looking up into the tree, which she recognized as a cherry tree. Cherry trees didn't grow in the mountains, at least as far as Sakura had seen, and there was something off about this particular tree, something that made it…different. Sakura stared up at the tree for several long minutes, trying to figure out what it was that she was overlooking here.

_Grey…_

The petals on the blossoms were grey. Sakura knew it was wrong, grey petals on a live cherry tree, but she couldn't seem to remember what color they were supposed to be. It was as if she had no concept of what normal was here, wherever here was.

Sakura stiffened as a strange breeze tickled the branches of the tree, sending the pale grey petals falling into her hair and collecting on her lashes like bits of rain. It was then that she realized what it was…_genjutsu._

"Things are not always what they seem…" It was an unfamiliar voice, dark, deep and cold, like marble, or stone. The words had barely hit Sakura's ears before she was down in a defensive position, already spinning strands together for a chakra needle between her fingers.

"It is so handy, being able to create your own weapons. Very practical…useful, even," The voice seemed to chuckle then, as though they had just made a joke.

"Who are you?" Sakura demanded. The response was a laugh, echoing into the clearing from several different directions at once, making it seem as though the entity were everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

"You would ask such a stupid question first." The voice said, "typical. Why a name, girl? Surely there are other things you could have asked for…"

"True, but nothing else would fit as snugly on tombstone, and I'm sure you would hate for me to make something up…" Sakura egged darkly, which seemed to change the mood of her mysterious assailant drastically.

"Considering your limited vocabulary and fondness of vulgarity, I agree, I would hate very much to see what you came up with." The voice growled quietly.

Suddenly, they were in front of her, just mere yards between them. A man carrying a long, black sheathed-katana strapped to his back, with dark brown robes, and long, jet-black hair that was speckled with bits of grey here and there. It seemed odd, but Sakura could not exactly tell his age from where she stood. He wore bandages over his eyes, hands, and feet, wrapped so tightly that they almost seemed a part of him, and they shielded her prying eyes from looking for wrinkles or spots that might shed some light on the subject. The man must have felt her staring, because he seemed to turn away from her gaze, to the side as though he didn't want her to see him.

It was almost as if he was ashamed, somehow, of his appearance.

"Are you hurt?" Sakura asked. The man smiled at the ground a little as if the thought amused him.

"Still trying to fix things, are we?" He chuckled. Sakura's ears perked up at the sound of the man's quiet laughter. It sounded…familiar…like it was some part of an old story, or dream, that she had suddenly remembered all on her own. It felt like,

_Coming home…_Sakura thought, slowly rising out of her fighting position.

"I know that voice," Sakura said bluntly, looking for some sort of explanation, but the man offered none.

"I collect many things," The man said, "voices being just one."

"You still have not given me a name," Sakura said, neither amused, nor entirely angry about it.

"We cannot return to the ruins of the past," The man sighed, wistfully, "No matter how much we may wish it…" Even through the bandages it seemed as though he was looking at her now, straight and unabashedly staring right at her as if he didn't truly understand who she was before now. Whoever he had thought she was, she apparently wasn't, and the realization of this seemed to hit the man hard for second–but it was only a second. Gradually, it was as though the revelation made no difference to him at all.

"You never answered me," Sakura was not accustomed to anyone except for Shikamaru giving her any trouble with simple, inane information. Anyone she couldn't kill, at least.

"Anger is good. We can use that." The man smiled, but it felt like he was insulting her. Sakura was use to such pride in her targets, but there was something different about this man. Something drove a little sliver deep beneath her skin with every inch of his smile, and Sakura couldn't help but feel…

_Infuriated…_Sakura bit the inside of her cheek to keep from attacking the man directly. It was apparent that he wasn't there for a fight, or even to necessarily spy on her, since there were much simpler ways to do that. No, he was there to talk, but why seemed to completely escape her.

"What do you want?" Sakura was growing irritated.

"Nothing," He said simply, shaking his head, "Nothing at all…Akiri-san."

"Akiri...how do you know that name?" Sakura demanded, furious. No one outside the village knew about the nickname that the academy students had given her in the past few years, and even then, only the children were allowed it's use. Who was this man that he felt he could say such things without having earned the right?

The man didn't answer her demand, not audibly at least. Instead, he smiled at her, haughty and arrogant, very much like a little boy she once knew.

_It_ _can't be...he couldn't possibly..._Sakura stood, staring as the gen-jutsu slowly dissipated around her, leaving her standing in her apartment once again.

Not knowing what else to do, Sakura sat down on her unmade bed, trying to put her finger on that tiny little nagging feeling in the back of her mind. The man hadn't threatened her, not explicitly at least, and she sensed no ill intent from the illusory meeting.

So then, what was it that was bothering her about it?

_ Geez', __where do we start?_ Sakura stretched, gently kneading at the skin to keep the scab on her shoulder from healing too tightly. The mark Shikamaru had given her burned a little, but not unbearably.

_Strange thing, to waste an expert gen-jutsu on simple meeting…_Sakura cracked her neck as she thought about the dream jutsu. She would figure out how they did it later, but for now, she simply wanted to understand their motives. There were an unfathomable number of ways to cast such a jutsu, but there were only a handful of reasons one might actually do so.

_Could be the relative of a target,_ Sakura sighed, getting up and shuffling over to her closet to pull on a pair of black shorts.

_Could be an assassin, too,_ Sakura ran a brush through her long dark pink hair, pulling it up and into a messy bun. She shrugged into a simple, calf-length long-sleeved deep-red tunic with a worn Haruno clan symbol on the back that had been "altered" some what by Naruto back when they were kids. It had been washed many times since then, but she could still see the faint white outlines of the smiley face graffiti Naruto had contributed to the Haruno clan's circle.

"_Look Sakura-chan!" Naruto had roared with a cackle, "I made art!"_

"_Hn," Sasuke sneered in response, "if you call **that** art…dobe…"_

"_Who you callin' dobe, dobe! That's it; I challenge you, you Uchiha-bastard! Battle to the death! Loser buys Ramen!" _

"_You'd have to __**be**__ a loser to want to eat that stuff." Sasuke had commented. Naruto lunged at him._

God only knows how many times she kept those two from killing each other over stupid bouts of raving stupidity and pure, blind, ignorance. In the end, Sakura had had to trap Naruto in a chakra net in order to keep him from hurting Sasuke, but knowing him he probably loved it. As Sakura remembered the whole event had almost been able to crack a smile in Sasuke's usually icy demeanor, which she supposed was saying something.

_Almost wasn't good enough, though…_Sakura sighed, strapping several daggers, kunais, and a small stiff pouch of needles to her leg. She would take her… katana and scabbard, and a dusty pair of sai, just to get back into practice. She didn't usually practice with her older weapons, often because either time or experience had rendered them inefficient or obsolete in her line of work. But today she felt like doing something she had never really been too keen to entertain,

_ Playing..._


	12. Chapter 12 : Furukizu

Hey all! So sorry for the long absence! I'm kind of writing this as it hits me, so I work on it between projects. I'm finishing my first book, and I'm trying to get some preproduction on my screenplay done for a December shoot–so Shira is going slightly insane at the moment, but not to worry…all the best stories stem from someone else's insanity. As always, I give this to you all with much love and appreciation. Thankyou for fav's and reviews, I read each and every one and they always make my day! I love you guys, you're the best. 3 _Shiranami_

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Chapter 12 : Furukizu

Feeling a warm tickling sensation on his right arm, Shikamaru had to smile to himself.

_Sakura's in a good mood…_He was glad he'd given her the seal now. A few, chakra infused slashes deep enough to scar and he had a make-shift homing beacon, good enough for even Akiri-san to ignore as something useless and sentimental.

_She'll probably be pissed when she finds out about it…_Shikamaru couldn't help but snicker a little, earning him a curious glare from the solemn-faced ink-user standing on the branch beside him. Sai was never very good with reading people, but his unusual creativity with ninjutsu and ink rather made up for it. Shikamaru had worked with him a great deal more since Naruto had defected four years prior, splintering the remains of former Team Seven in the process.

_And Sakura…_Shikamaru thought with a frown. He could still remember the first time he'd noticed her change, just a few months after Naruto had gone.

It had been on a mission to Rain country, and their teams had happened to cross paths during an ambush. At first, Shikamaru had thought that Sakura's team was in retreat, and that the blood on their hands and uniforms was their own–boasting steep odds at any effective counterattack. Shikamaru was placing his team around the gorge they had taken haven in, trying to get Sakura's team to hide behind the cover of a small waterfall that sat at the farthest end.

"_We're not hiding, Nara." Sakura hissed, "and don't think for a second you can force us, because it's too dark to bend shadows here and you know it."_

Even back then at seventeen she had been obstinate, head strong, and stubborn–all traits that Shikamaru despised in women, and particularly in subordinates. He barely had time to recalculate before she was gone, rushing out and into the open to take the enemy head on. He had been shocked, surprised, and horrified, believing her actions to be all but suicidal under the circumstances.

But it was then, as Sakura pulled out her sai in mid-air and thrust them deep into the chest of an advancing foe–that Shikamaru realized something was very different about Haruno. It was as though something essential, or at least potentially quantifiable were gone or changed in her, a light shut off, or a door nailed shut.

That's when he learned that Haruno was no longer the same little girl he had grown up despising in training scenarios, the one wild-card factor that always put her own team at a disadvantage–whether she meant to or not. It was then, as Sakura pulled her bloodied sai from the body of the enemy shinobi, that Shikamaru realized something terrible that was likely throw off every calculation he made from now until the end of his life.

He had underestimated her.

"You seem in deep contemplation." Sai observed thoughtfully. Shikamaru put out his cigarette and chanced a roll of his eyes to his usually quiet teammate.

"Not deep, just far." Shikamaru looked back out onto the dark, snowy forest around them.

"About Akiri-san?" Sai asked bluntly. Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow, annoyed.

"Why would you say that, Sai?"

"Because the Hyuga has informed me that it would be unwise to state my usual insults for Haruno-san in your presence. I can only conclude this to be because of a close or intimate relational connection between you and she."

"Hn." Shikamaru grunted, making a mental note to put a few throwing stars under the Hyuga's sleeping mat tonight.

"May I ask a favor, Nara-san?" Sai inquired, carefully. Shikamaru looked over at the dark eyed Anbu beside him curiously, and nodded.

"Can you tell me how Haruno-san is doing? I have not seen her for some time, and know not the proper social etiquette to be used when inquiring after her well-being."

Shikamaru smiled slightly to himself. It was amusing to see this generally emotionless shinobi concerned for his former teammate, whether he knew he was concerned or not.

"You miss her," Shikamaru said.

"I believe the sensation is something akin to that, yes." Sai nodded determinedly.

"You should tell her." Shikamaru smirked to himself, wondering what Sai might actually say in attempt to bring such alien emotions across. With any luck, the end product would be something so infuriating that Sakura might actually use some of her chakra needles as payback. The whole idea would be incredibly entertaining so long as she didn't actually find out Shikamaru was behind it.

"Neji should be back by now," Shikamaru thought of the thin, feather shaped cut he'd put on the Hyuga before he left for his scouting. Had it healed over? It'd only been a day since he'd made the mark, but already he could feel the connection between him and his teammate growing faint. He began to see all possibilities pointing to the worst. If the Hyuga had been captured, there was more than just adjusting the fighting formations and tactical advance to deal with.

_They know we're coming…_Shikamaru gritted his teeth a little, a habit that Kurenai had told him would have him gumming ramen before he turned thirty.

_If I make it that long…_He could only hope.

"Your stance and breathing patturns have changed. Your respiration is forced and deliberate. You believe Hyuga-san has met with defeat?" Sai said. Shikamaru glanced in annoyance at the observance of his anbu teammate, but ignored the urge to retort with a smart remark. If he said anything but the literal translation of what he meant with Sai, then he was really just setting himself up for losing the inkling to the vast and shady depth of his own curious thoughts and ponderings, and they couldn't afford that now.

"Did you prepare the vials?" Shikamaru asked tersely. Quietly, Sai reached into his traveling cloak, his hand re-emerging with three glass vials of a strange black liquid.

"I followed Akiri-san's original recipe to every exact specification, not counting a few small additions by the Hokage." Sai said.

"Good," Shikamaru complimented gruffly, more concerned about tactical adjustments and how he would make this work with only two men, instead of three. _If_ he could make this work. By Kami, what he wouldn't give to have Sakura here right now.

"Nara-san, I think we should move. My crows in the North of the forest tell me something is coming." Sai said softly. Shikamaru nodded.

_Understatement…_he thought, grimly.

* * *

Sakura felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, as a cold, icy chill trickled it's way down her spine.

_What the–_Sakura froze. Her senses went on high alert by instinct, and she found her chakra reaching out before she even had a chance to think about it. It was a knee-jerk reaction from her Chunin years, when Kiba and Naruto had made a game of sorts out of taking her by surprise. She'd had to learn how to survey any area she'd stepped into for first, their presence, and then for which presence belonged to which person. As it stood, Sasuke was the only one who had ever been able to catch her unawares–and he wasn't even playing. Sakura supposed that made sense though, what with his Sharingan able to see energy signatures like glow in the dark paint.

_Stupid Sharingan..._Sakura stood stock still, scanning the edges of the forest for anything other than the usual plants or animals. Despite all the aggravation the stupid power-hungry blood-line had caused her team, Sakura still couldn't help but wish she had special eyes too right now.

_Would make searching a half-mile radius more like looking out the window than stumbling down the stairs in the dark..._Sakura waited a moment, ensuring she left no stone unturned or corner unexplored.

There was nothing. Aside from a few of the Nara's deer grazing in a glen a ways off, there was nothing out there that wasn't supposed to be there.

_Weird…_Sakura shivered slightly. The flinch gained her Akamaru's attention. He raised his lopsided puppy-dog head into the air stiffly, suddenly alert to all that was around him as he searched for any obvious threats. But after he listened for a moment, smelling and waiting for some sign of danger, he simply shrugged back down into the field, snuggling into the warm green strands of grass and flowers. Honestly, between the lack of trepidation and at-will serenity the perpetual pup commanded, Sakura was somewhat envious at the moment.

"Wish I could relax that easy," Sakura smirked at the fluffy, white and black animal lying languidly on his stomach in the bright, warm sunlight.

_Right then..._Sakura hummed, returning her focus back to her target practice. It helped a little, to have something else to give all her attention to instead of worrying about Shikamaru and his team. She hadn't been able to gather all that much Intel on the mission he'd been sent on, despite her more clever efforts, and being out of the loop was rather unknown territory for her. Normally, not being in on certain information wasn't a problem for her, because _normally_, Sakura would be assigned to these sorts of missions.

Only this time, she wasn't the one on the mission. This time it was Shikamaru Nara, the idiot boy she'd gone and gotten attached to despite all struggling remains of her better judgment. The stupid boy who did stupid things and usually ended up escaping them by the skin of his stupid, _stupid_, teeth. Because, all though he was a top notch intelligence officer, Sakura had it on good authority that he hadn't been in the field in over a year.

So, right now, Sakura was concerned. Not worried, because ninjas' didn't know the meaning of such a silly word–but she was very, very _concerned_. Normally, Sakura was good at pushing fears aside and ignoring unsubstantiated fears about the people and things around her. Whatever it was that made her imagine terrible things happening at that very moment to someone she loved out there in the world–she'd long ago learned how to wrangle and subdue it. But something didn't sit right about Shikamaru's mission and it's oddly timed commencement. Mere days after her return from a job that turned up more bodies than answers.

She had the feeling that something much bigger was taking form and the only things she could see were the individual materials being used. It was more frustrating than the time she and Naruto had been trapped in a cave when they were fourteen. Their air had been quickly diminishing after a rescue mission of a local excavator ended in a disastrous cave-in. It had just been him and her, alone in the dark with no one else to cling to but each other as they began to feel light-headed from the lack of oxygen. Sitting there, in that cave, they had been able to hear people calling for them. They yelled, cried and screamed in reply–but no matter how loud they were, no one on the outside could hear them.

Sakura lined up her throwing hand with her target, half a field away. She was practicing with her Sai, a short-range weapon she'd favored long before Anbu. She supposed, in a way, it felt like regaining some piece of a childhood that had just up and wandered off somewhere she'd never been able to find. All that just by holding a weapon that she'd used back when things had still been good. Back in the days when she was still able to keep that delicate balance between the death she dealt in her profession, and the life she went back to afterwards.

_Yeah, not much difference now…_Sakura thought gruffly, throwing the sai in her hand with a finite accuracy, hitting one of the flower petals still remaining on the poor daisy she'd tacked to the target post several hundred yards away. Sakura smirked, chuckling a little to herself as she surveyed her efforts.

_He loves me…or is it, he loves me not? Wait, which one was I on?_ Sakura paused a moment, finger tipped towards her lips as though she were trying to catch their attention, to pull out the answer she couldn't seem to find in her head. As if reading her mind, Akamaru barked from his post amidst the dandelions and wagged his tail furiously, happy just to be there as though nothing else were needed in his world.

"He loves me…thank you, Akamaru. I'm glad one of us was keeping track." Sakura blew a kiss to her large, fuzzy roommate, and started towards the target to collect her weapons. She hadn't thought to tie chakra strings to them for easy retrieval, but then again, she wasn't really practicing wholeheartedly at the moment.

_Wonder whose fault that is?_ Ni teased from a distance through their chakra linking.

_Ni…_Sakura smiled to herself…_I didn't think you'd be back so soon._

_ You missed me, didn't you! _Ni exclaimed, giggling happily. Sakura had reached the target post by now, and she stooped as she spoke briefly with her clone over the invisible chakra channel. Reaching forwards, Sakura grabbed one of her sai, pulling it out of the post.

_I didn't say that…_Sakura schooled her expression, trying to hide the happiness in her thoughts. The truth was she had missed Ni, and Ichi, even if it had only been a few days apart. It was strange not to have them return for so long. Nobody else knew they were traveling outside the village on their own, and for the moment, that was how Sakura wanted to keep it. The two of them needed some yard time, and she needed more information, making it more of beneficial arrangement for them all.

_Ichi says she's still getting the nosebleeds from the new Jutsu…._Ni reported cheerily. Sakura had to shake her head as she yanked another of her sai from the target post. It almost sounded like Ni was enjoying her counterpart's suffering. Not that Sakura could necessarily blame her.

_Tell her to keep drinking the vials…Are your muscle cramps any better? _Sakura asked.

_A little…still hurts like a mother when I split…you never told me how much it can hurt…_Ni whined. Sakura felt bad for her, but there wasn't much to be done now. Releasing just one seal had put a toll on all of them, but Sakura had never thought that their symptoms would be different.

_Just be glad you don't have Ichi's problem…and be glad you can move at all at this point…_Sakura stood, heading back to her point of origin as she readied herself for another round of target practice. It was rather "sugar-coated" to say that the seal had been released, in any manor of speaking. In reality, the event had been a bit more bloody, with sobbing from Ni and absolute silence from Ichi in the aftermath. Rubbing at the slight soreness in her arm from where Shikamaru had marked her, Sakura silently thanked whatever force there was in the universe that it hadn't scabbed over _before_ they broke the small seal on her left wrist.

_Hmph…_Ni said glumly_…I think "tearing" or "butchering" might be a better vocab word here…_

Sakura rolled her eyes. Little clones could be so irritating at times, what with their complaints about bodily pain and extended sufferings. For Kami's sake, they were acting like they'd never had pain before!

_Not like this…_Ni retorted.

_I gave you guys a choice…_Sakura offered, feeling somewhat ashamed at this point. Maybe she was wrong for asking them to do this, to help her in this insane way that not even she could entirely justify as anything other than psychotic.

_Our favorite flavor…_Ni joked, her voice getting softer and more distant in Sakura's thoughts as she headed on her way again.

_Be careful…_Sakura told her, trying not to let the worry slip into her tone, but it didn't seem to work all that well. Ni could sense it, and Sakura could feel the clone's heart go out to her. It wasn't quite a feeling of pity, or even understanding, but rather, a warm sort of touch in her mind, one that made her feel as though everything was going to be okay.

_Stop that…_Sakura hissed, missing her target for the first time in years. Ni laughed.

_Sorry…must've slipped…my bad…_Ni giggled, but her thoughts were so faint, it might as well have been a whisper. Sakura sighed, walking forward to grab her weapon, eager to brush away any evidence of her obvious success at a mis-throw. Akamaru barked from his plush little dandelion bed, eager to be on his own way again. He probably wanted to go and get some ramen, something Kiba had gotten him hooked on several years ago.

_Stupid dog-boy. I bet Hinata never had to deal with this…_Sakura scooped up her sai and turned to glance at Akamaru, rolling around happily in the sunlight. Honestly, she had to get him out more. If the pooch was this happy over a little dandelion romp, what would he do if he got out to the woods every day instead of sniffing around in the bars for his drunken bug-boy.

_Have to talk to Ino about Shino, his liver can't take much more of this…coping…_Sakura tried to file this particular worry into a less-dusty corner of her mind for later use. She _would_ have to talk to Ino about it, and soon, if Akamaru's late night wanderings were any indication of the frequency of Shino's drinking problem. With the scars he still had from the ambush, and what he'd lost in the process, Sakura knew he wouldn't be very warm to the idea of talking about quitting, but then again, she wasn't too warm to opening up the conversation with someone who had threatened to 'swarm her with flesh-eating beetles' the next time they saw her.

_Touchy…_Sakura frowned. Honestly, you mention _one time_ that somebody might have a drinking problem (though a slight push through a bar's plate glass window perhaps had something to do with lingering hostilities), and somebody goes all Sharigran on your ass. Sakura still wasn't allowed in the establishment-in-question, or even on the same street…which made her proud, for some odd reason.

As the shrink at headquarters had said last year, just before clearing her for yet another tour of duty with the invisible ranks of covert opts,

"_You suffer from_ _self-destructive tendencies with self-deprecating emotional defenses." The doctor's glasses were a little too small for his head, which gave the impression that his head was either too large, or he had picked up someone else's pair–and simply too proud to admit it. Neither option gave him any points in Sakura's book._

_ "And that means...?" Sakura raised an eyebrow at the little, pudgy, self-important man sitting in the over-stuffed office chair behind the big oak desk before her. The doctor smirked at her, an odd form of benevolent condescension stirring behind his eyes. Sakura could practically smell the BS wafting off of him in waves. She subtly attempted to cover her nose._

_ "Means you're self-sacrificing. So much so, that it's almost to the point of personal detriment. But where such behavior would be seen as unhealthy and dangerous in the average civilian, you shinobi operate under a different standard. To warriors, this need to sacrifice is noble, essential even, if one is to do their job well."_

_ "Uh...thanks, I think..." Sakura wasn't sure whether she had just been insulted, complimented, reprimanded, or mocked. In the end she decided she didn't care enough to pursue it, and let it go. All that mattered to her was that the doc, regardless of personal opinion, was able to make an accurate medical call._

_ In the end...he did. Make the right call, that is. Sakura let out a breath in relief as she watched him sign the papers on his desk, setting her free to go be her sick, twisted self somewhere hopefully very far away from him. _

_ Sakura was glad. For a second there, she was almost afraid she was going to have to pull a kunai on him..._

Sakura chuckled at the memory and headed back towards Akamaru, who was nearly hopping with joy at the prospect of eating again, as per usual. Sakura supposed you took your happiness where you could find it, simple or not.

_Might wanna take a lesson there, eh self? _Sakura hummed, eyeing the array of weapons that she'd packed in her weapons scroll, wishing she had more time to practice with each and every one of them. She glanced over at Akamaru. He was trustworthy, as far as Ninja animals went, and though a little aloof like his former owner, he was a good dog.

Reaching into the money scroll she kept strapped in the side of her boot, Sakura tossed a small roll of bills to Akamaru, who caught it with a wag of his tail before speeding off in what Sakura recognized as the direction of Ichikiru. He was nothing but a blur of fur and excitement as Sakura watched him go with a smile.

_Think it's safe to say he knows where he's going…_Sakura was glad Akamaru was independent, and didn't nag her for attention as much as Ino did. He was a rather ideal roommate in that respect. Of course, there was the added benefit of him not being able to talk…at least in any way Sakura or anybody else could clearly translate. No, Sakura was able to get feelings and senses from the dog, but little else, as it probably should be.

"Wonder what you would say if you could," Sakura slipped her sai into the hostlers strapped to her thigh and pulled a long, dark wood Bo staff from of the weapon's scroll.

Sakura recalled, on several occasions, walking to the practice fields with Hinata to fetch Kiba for a mission, and finding him and Akamaru sitting down, caught up in some sort of bizarre communication. Kiba would be talking, and Akamaru would be responding with growls, barks, and wags of his tail. It was as if they each spoke the other's own odd, unique, backwards language. When Kiba finally proposed to Hinata, Sakura couldn't help but overhear how much of the proposal's suddenness was to blame on Akamaru. The dog, Kiba claimed, had made it clear Hinata was a prime choice for a human mate, and had been reminding Kiba day and night how much they both loved her…Kiba in particular.

_"It got annoying, and what was worse was that he was right…"_ Kiba had complained to her and Tenten afterwards. Hinata couldn't seem to stop smiling, no matter what the back story was, and for the first time in a long time–Sakura believed that maybe even she might be able to be happy, just like Hinata.

_No,_ _leave the dark thoughts where you found them. Move on..._Sakura frowned, twirling the staff beside her with one hand for a moment before switching over to warm up the other.

Sakura had tried many times to find the people responsible for Hinata and Kiba's deaths, almost defecting from the village simply out of sheer obsession while she followed up on clues, rumors and personal suspicions…all of them leading seemingly nowhere. Kakashi, Genma and Kurenai had to ask specific permission from the Hokage to leave and bring her back. It took them three weeks and several rounds of tranquilizers to bring her back, but Sakura still didn't count it as an actual capture since she'd been sleeping when they found her. Unconsciousness, despite whatever Kakashi said, was not a valid form of defensive positioning, and therefore you could not actually fight someone who was no "in their right mind".

_Too bad I wasn't as good as Sasuke and Naruto in evading that one…_Sakura spun the staff behind her back, reaching into the weapons pouch fastened to her waist to grab a handful of throwing stars. A few hand signs had the stars up and about in the air, whisking off into the bright rays of sunlight to hide before they would circle back to try and attack her. Sakura loved to practice this way, without safety nets, so-to-speak. Real, harsh, and hard…enough to pound all the feelings out of her, all the memories, and nightmares. She just had to make it until Shikamaru got back. That was it. Anko had said the mission would take a week or two, tops. Sakura could hold on until then…at least, she hoped she could.

_God, help me. Just a few more days, help me last at least that long…_With Shikamaru things, and life, seemed less of a hell and more of a manageable burden. True, there were many things she still hated with a vengeance, but if Shikamaru was there, she felt like she could deal with it…somehow.

A throwing star went whizzing past her cheek, nearly missing her eyelashes as it rounded a tree behind her to swing back. Sakura crouched as the throwing stars came wailing back through the atmosphere and bore down on her in the middle of the field. Sakura twirling the staff before her and above her head to deflect the first wave of weapons. She twirled it once more to deflect the second, and she flipped backwards to avoid the third. That was it, it was done. The jutsu, sadly, only included three waves. Sakura sighed, starting to pick up the throwing stars with a frown.

_Pathetic…_was the word that came to mind. God, what she wouldn't give to have someone to practice with her again. To have anyone who wasn't afraid to practice with her, period. Maybe she could convince some of the newer baby Anbu? Teach them a thing or two about overestimating themselves?

_Wouldn't that be nice…_Sakura smirked a little. It was then, just as Sakura was lazily plucking the stars from the ends of her staff that the ground beneath her feet gave way, and imploded.


	13. Chapter 13 : Nagori

_Please review! ~ Shira_

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Chapter 13 : Nagori

_Two weeks prior…_

The first thing Anbu recruits learned before any black-opts mission was that the obvious answer to a problem was often the most dangerous to undertake. Sakura recalled Ibiki had made up a term to summarize of the general concept behind the four basic principles of undetectable infiltration in undercover intelligence operations:

_Don't go through the front door._

It was a simple term, but effective. Just as Kakashi's 'Look beneath the underneath', only far more utilitarian.

_Literally…_Sakura noted as she stood there before the open door at the front of the complex she'd been watching for weeks. Something was wrong. The business man who lived here maintained the excellent facade of a law-abiding citizen, and he was meticulous in his execution. He simply _didn't_ make mistakes…which is why seeing the front door wide open was so unsettling.

_Well that's not a good sign…_Ni observed.

_Yah' think, dobe?_ Ichi hissed back.

_Stop it–_Sakura scolded them silently as she crept up along the shadows of the front path, trying to get a sense of what was going on. Was it a trap?

_No chakra strings or wires. The infrastructure is clear…_Ni reported.

_Ichi?_ Sakura paused, listening to a sound, a soft rustling in the bushes behind her.

A black and white cat emerged from the leaves, licking it's dirt stained paws. It arched it's back at Sakura and hissed, running away into the darkness.

_I'm not getting any chakra signatures…_Ichi hummed, curiously.

_None at all?_ Ni whined.

_Cept' the cat…_Ichi growled…_there are a few faint signals farther into the compound, but they're too weak to be shinobi._

_More kitties?…_Ni seemed hopeful.

_Dare to dream, mini-me…_Sakura sighed, drawing her katana low to her side as she silently stepped through the open door. An eerie stillness hit her in the first step, and she could feel Ichi and Ni pause in their respective locations as a sudden realization settled over them all. They all _knew_ this feeling.

_Death's been here…_Ni thought in a whisper.

_He'd better have left me some scraps…_Ichi snarled. Sakura had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

_Don't come in here, Ni…_Sakura thought, sharply…_Ichi, perimeter…you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to enter this house until it's clear, understood?_

_Got it_...Ni piped, seeming all too eager to be left out of this part. Despite her unusual talents with chakra and knives, she never really liked to use either if she could help it. She was more of the 'lover' not a 'fighter' sort. Which meant only that she ultimately preferred _kittens_ to _kunai_.

_Ichi?_ Sakura waited for a reply. There was a pause, a long beat in which Sakura wondered if something malevolent had befallen her ever tempestuous clone.

_Ichi...are we __**understood**__?_ Sakura repeated with emphases.

_That's a large effin'_ _**affirmative**__, capt'n…_Ichi growled back.

Sakura slowly let out a breath she didn't even realize she was holding. If Ichi was going to be mad at her for something, it might as well be this.

_It's bad enough that one of us'll have nightmares…_Sakura thought, darkly.

She chose her movements carefully, calculating each shift and turn as if the slightest disturbance would bring the whole house down on top of her. She was traveling off-trail now, with no protocol or books to guide her. So her, going off alone into a dark, suspiciously silent, enemy-foothold? So _not_ in the original black-opts itinerary.

_Ibiki's gonna kill me..._Sakura grumbled silently.

_Nope…_Ni interjected…_can't kill you if he can't find you._

_Especially if he can't even find __**part**__ of you…_Ichi added with an internal cackle.

Great. Now even her clones were assuming the worst.

_Would a little solidarity be too much to ask, guys?_ Sakura growled.

She needed them to be with her right now, completely and wholly present in the moment. Because, in this moment, like it or not, the urge to do something, to hold, or heal anything or one, was very close to overwhelming her. When she was younger the need to fix things had been far easier to contend with. It was as small as she was then, some minor force that could be focused, or even ignored with enough patience and practice. Then all those dark years had happened, and the need to fix became a need to fight, a twisted translation of her childhood passions into a much dimmer and indifferent adult reality. Without her clones to siphon off the emotional overflow, Sakura was sure she wouldn't be able to keep herself together at all, let alone in times like this.

_Or any time something has gone terribly, terribly wrong..._ Sakura scanned every inch of each surface before she touched it, slowly edging her way with care further into the house. She had to approach this with caution, and not just in case the house wasn't actually empty. If Sakura moved too far from her clones the chakra linking between them began to degrade, causing the transference of their thoughts and communiqué to sound softer, more of a whisper – even at times cutting off all-together. Essentially, if any of them went too far from the others, they wouldn't be able to call for help. They would be at that point, as Ino so eloquently would put it "screwed blue and run thru".

Tsunade had explained chakra-linking as a very long, thin, invisible, rubber-band that extended from Sakura and back to her clones like a cord. If either clone moved away from her , the cord stretched, taking more chakra to sustain the jutsu and any subsequent connections like the telepathy. It, in effect, drained them whenever they managed to get far enough out of sight of each other, far too much to be considered just a minor side-effect of the technique. This part was something Sakura had found out the hard way on her first Anbu mission four years prior. Even then Tsunade had made a point of telling her that it was "_a good thing_" Kakashi had been there to pull the battered pieces of her psyche back together before her heart had a chance to stop for good.

_Yeah…_Sakura scowled, bitterly in the darkness…_good thing._

Sakura held her sword aloft stretched out long and lean before her, reaching for the kunai in her boot as she crept along the darkened hallway to the front sitting room. A fire was still burning in the fireplace, food sitting forgotten on a formal table to the side, and the compound guards were eerily absent. Which was odd, you know, for _gaurds_.

Sakura herself had scrolled through their personnel files months ago, and she knew that most of the compound bodyguards had been trained in a lesser form of kata, an aggressive, open style that hit _first_ and asked questions _later_.

_No welcome party…_Ichi growled suspiciously.

_Awww…_Ni whined…_No fun…_

Sakura rolled her eyes.

_Focus please, children…_She reminded them. There appeared to be a half-finished game of shogi sitting on the coffee table between two chairs, and Sakura noted that a few of the pieces had been scattered onto the floor.

_There's a light on in the family quarters, master bedroom…_Ni was circling the compound cautiously…_there's a strange chakra signature out here, Kiri…I've felt it before, but I can't place it…_

_Is it receeding?_ Sakura paused, eyeing a strangely empty flower pot that stood in the middle of the room. A few small, blackened petals dusted the table lightly, shed in whatever hurry the theif had left in.

_Yeah…_Ni sounded distracted…_wait, there it goes. It's gone._

_Transportation jutsu…_Sakura hissed. Whoever had been here had training-_ninja_ _training_. Sakura collected a few of the dark, forgotten petals and slipped them into a small vial from her vest for later testing. Tsunade would want to get her hands on fresh samples as soon as she could, because fresh samples meant a more potent batch of powder to research, and a stronger experimental antibiotic.

_Maybe even…_But Sakura would not allow herself to hope for that last possibility. No, she wouldn't set herself up for such bitter disappointment again, knowing what the odds would be against her.

_What if it did lead to a cure?_ Ni asked.

Sakura drew in a sharp breath, trying not to imagine it, not to torture herself. After a moment, Sakura could feel her calm returning, and she shook her head to rid herself of whatever lingering sentiments still clung to her ragged heartstrings.

_Entering first hallway, sector two…_Sakura tried to control her breathing, but it was hard when her heart was pumping as fast as a hummingbird. Halting for a moment, Sakura sniffed the air, following a strong coppery scent that hit her at the precipice. She paused. She was at the entrance to the family quarters.

_C'mon, Saks…one foot in front of the other…_Sakura steadied herself, trying to settle that small anxious part of her that was screaming at her to get out. Forcing herself to slow her breathing, Sakura stepped softly into the family's private quarters.

Something was wrong. So _very_ wrong that she couldn't quite place it as she visually surveyed her present dark and inky shadowy surroundings. The shadows weren't…well, _right_. They were too dark, too black. They dripped. They soaked into the wood, glistening in the moonlight, flowing into the cracks between the floorboards and pooling in ways that no shadow ever should be able.

_Oh God…_Sakura froze. It was blood. On the floor, ceilings, walls, everywhere. More blood than a sparse one, or even two, people might contain on their own. It looked like someone had slaughtered a village, which made Sakura wonder, why on Earth weren't there any bodies?

Sakura's ears perked up. There was a muffled whimpering sound farther down the hallway, gargled and hoarse but loud enough to be heard by those few who were trained to listen.

_Kiri, don't-_ Ichi warned, but it was too late. Sakura was already running, sliding across the blood slickened floor and into the small room at the back of the hallway.

Perhaps, at one point, it had been the master bedroom. The room where the businessman would go to relax, and unwind. Maybe read to his children. Talk with his wife until they both fell asleep. If there was one thing that Sakura had learned in all her missions with kill orders tagged onto them, it was that even supposedly evil people were human. They loved, they lusted, they protected those they cared about and perhaps even gave to the poor on occasion to cleanse a guilty concience.

The room looked like an explosive tag had gone off prematurely. A small, flickering light lay haphazardly on it's side next to the bed, as though the occupants had awoken in surprise, and been unable to either right the light or turn on the second lamp on the opposite side.

The faint glow projected by the feeble appliance made Sakura immediately wish to God that this room had been just as pitch black and bathed in shadows like all the rest. She would have considered it a large mercy not to have this paticular image burned into her mind.

The compound gaurds lay dead at intervals along the wall, some of them cleanly missing a visible part or two, as if the shinobi responsible had used them for carving practice.

_Only, this wasn't practice…_Sakura noted. One body appeared to be missing his ears, another his toungue and hands, another lost all the fingers on his left hand, and several more had been eviscerated in the most painful ways possible. Someone had _known_ exactly what they were doing and why. Sakura could tell from the quality of the cuts alone that every stroke and slive had been made with purpose and great intent.

Forcing herself to step into the room for a closer look, Sakura could now see the empty cavities in their torsos where important organs had once resided.

_Oh God…_They had been butchered. Literally.

Sakura had taken assasination missions before, and she'd been taught by Ibiki and every other Anbu captain that she'd worked with that the cleanest kill was the correct one. There was no honor in carving up your targets like bits of kindling, even if it was to get information. If you were good enough to get into a place like this and surprise the gaurds, you were good enough to know that there were other alternatives to physical torture.

This _was_ sick.

The whimpering sound came again. Sakura listened intently for a moment before turning towards the direction she had heard it last. A folding door at the end of the room…the bedroom closet.

_Aw shit…_Ichi groaned, fully anticipating a fight now. But Sakura wasn't so sure about that. Someone who had just carved up a large team of highly trained men didn't just hide in the closet when they were done.

_You sure about that?_ Ichi muttered. Sakura shook her head in response, even though she knew neither clone could see the action. Sakura wasn't sure. She wasn't sure about anything.

Carefully, Sakura gently nudged back the closet's screen door, and paused–not entirely certain what she was seeing.

It was…a person? A woman, at least at one time. Somehow, she was alive–if you could even call it that. There was breathing, but just barely. Her body was a tense, frightened form lying bloody and broken on the closet floor, but still–it was a_ living _one.

Sakura recognized the woman's face from photographs, though she looked much changed since Sakura had last seen them lying in the folder of a prior recon report. The woman's dark, expensive kimono had been cut and torn at the waist, exposing a little of her large, pregnant belly.

_Pregnant?_ Sakura hadn't known the man's wife was with child. How did he manage to hide that from the ever prying eyes of recon, and more importantly, why would he want or need to?

The wife's long black-hair was splayed about the floor, tangled with shoe laces and discarded clothes that she had obviously tried to use as cover of some sort. Her husband must have shoved her in the closet to hide when he heard the gaurds get overrun in the hallway.

A raspy, gargling sound drew Sakura's attention to the poor woman's neck.

Kneeling down, Sakura pulled off one of her gloves, showing the woman a single, empty, harmless hand. It was a silent, but effective way to ask for permission to examen her. The woman's eyes widened, and she seemed to understand the action enough not to object with noise or movement. Sakura tried not to think about the possibility that the woman could no longer decide whether or not to move at all.

Sakura slowly leaned in and brushed the long dark hair out and away from the injured woman's face, trying to find out if her rusty medic instincts were indeed correct. If she was right–then she didn't want to move or jarr the woman in any way, least she cause even more damage than had already been done.

_Please tell me I'm wrong…_Sakura's fingers had barely ghosted the side of the woman's cheek before she had her answer. It had only taken a moment, a sinlge unconcious instant in which her chakra had automatically gone about assessing the victim's state only to return a sad and harrowing diagnosis. Sakura hadn't even thought about it, but had done it automatically due to years and years of medical training that refused to be silenced.

The woman's throat had been cut.

Badly too, by the sound of it. The cut had not been meant to kill the woman right away, but to paralyze her. Probably to get her out of the way while other, more important targets were engaged. Breifly, Sakura wondered if she could heal it, but in her head she'd already done the math, and knew it couldn't be done.

The woman had lost too much blood, but not from her throat. Her legs and feet were soaked in dark, bloody afterbirth, and Sakura stiffled an angry growl at the realization of what had happened to her.

Someone had cut the fetus out of her.

_Oh God…_Ni's voice was cracking, like she had gone too far and her signal strength was fading…_s-s-should I?_

_No Ni, _Sakura stopped her with a thought, a plea…_please, stay there…_

_I'll do it…_Ichi offered, her voice dark with frustration and rage, though Sakura knew herself well enough to know it wasn't directed at her.

_No, guys…this one has to be me…_Sakura stood determinedly, her hands poised directly above the poor woman's labored, dying heart.

_It's broken…_Ni said, and Sakura found, sadly, that she had to agree.

_Yes Ni,_ Sakura could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, _it's broken…_

Sakura took a deep breath and drew chakra into her fingers, sending one, single, interfearing bolt of electricity into the ruined cardiac organ, stopping it in the middle of one last, strangled beat.

_Broken like us?_ Ni asked.

_Yes Ni, _Sakura covered her face with her hands, stiffling the overwhelming urge to cry out between silent muffled sobs.

_Broken like us…_


	14. Chapter 14 : Moeagaru

Chapter 14 : Moeagaru

All she could hear was screaming.

At first it was so intense and painful that only thing comparable was one time, several years before, when Naruto had accidentally nicked her with the Chidori during training.

It had been an accident, of course, one flip here or kick there that went just a few centimeters too far for any of them to avoid, and then–collision.

There had been blood everywhere. The fact that it was Sakura's seemed to make it the ever more abominable mistake. She couldn't recall _ever_ seeing Kakashi actually go as white as his hair before, but he certainly had then…

Slowly, she began to take stock of her senses. She could remember the explosion. The ground rushing up to meet her in bits and sharp jagged pieces the size of her head and hands.

So when Sakura's eyes snapped open, and the first words out of her mouth were

"What the _fuck_?!" she felt absolutely justified.

Sakura hadn't meant for those to be the first words out of her mouth, especially in the prescence of hospital staff, but she really couldn't help it. Sakura didn't like surprises. Especially ones that went 'boom' underneath her feet. It was more than likely the potency of her surprise, confusion and general ire at what had happened (which was still rather fuzzy in her mind) that had drawn her back into the waking world.

She was lying in a hospital bed, feeling more sore and torn up than when she'd first started specilized training with Tsunade as a genin. She made a move to lift her head.

"Oh no you don't," A familiar, caloused hand promptly pushed Sakura's head firmly back onto her pillow. It was a gentle push, but one that made no secret of the fact that the action was _not_ a suggestion.

"If you open up anything I've stitched up, and I mean _anything_, I'll give you a sedative with side-effects that'll make you _wish_ you'd died," the voice shook with audible hostility.

_Tsunade…_Sakura tried to smile, but even the small action of breathing was agony, forcing her to settle for a wince. Sakura turned her eyes to settle on her teacher, who seemed to have forgotten her Hokage dressage, along with any semblance of personal hygeine.

"You've been here three weeks." Shizune piped up, leaning over Sakura's bed to flash her a tired, but relieved, smile.

"Did I die?" Sakura tried not to flinch at how dry and hoarse her voice sounded, how worn.

"No."

"Darn."

Tsunade fought hard to keep herself from rolling her eyes at her former pupil, but she knew she wouldn't have the strength to do it again.

"Anko found you collapsed in one of the practice fields, bleeding to death from whatever the hell you'd done to yourself." Tsunade's voice was strained, her face flickering between hard won relief and obvious anger.

_Here we go…_Sakura sighed.

"Seems you've been a naughtly little kunoichi, releasing one of your seals? It's no wonder your weren't able to keep yourself from absorbing your clone's injuries." Tsunade said, a quiet, but deadly ice to her tone. This was Tsunade's speciality now, using words to cut and twist instead of knives or chakra. She was letting Sakura know the gig was up, and she wasn't happy that said gig had ever been endevored.

_Somebody doesn't sound too happy…_Ichi muttered.

_Shut up, Ich…_Sakura ground her teeth, irate. The last thing she wanted to do was to explain to her teacher why she'd released one of the joint seals to exstend the range of her clones'. She was so stupid, and even Ni had told her so, for thinking that there wouldn't be consequences for breaking even just one in the chain of seals along her body.

_Man, we are in so much trouble…_Sakura groaned.

_Hey, dude, I just live here…_Ichi shot back quickly. Sakura had to suppress the urge to attempt her jutsu right then and there, just so she would have Ichi's head within smacking range.

"I don't know why you did it, and frankly, I don't think I want to know. You're just lucky we found somebody who knows how to restructure those damn things," Tsunade huffed, drawing Sakura's attention back to the room, "though it wasn't easy…"

_I'll bet…_Sakura scowled. Her seals were located along major tenketsu points, allowing for their effects to extend to even the deepest corners of her body. But then, that's what Hinata had designed them for, to filter her blood and keep the powder from taking over, from poisining her to death…again.

Sakura frowned. So many things in her life had gone wrong since that one mission to the mountain village of Kurohana. It had changed…many things. Everything, in fact. Sometimes Sakura wondered if her life would have turned out differently had she passed over the assignment all together. True, the fact that Shikamaru had been leading the team had been a major enducement, even then, but that didn't change the fact that Sakura had acted impulsively, and without thought. Would Hinata and Kiba still be here if she'd refused? More than that, would Shikamaru have survived the mission without her? Was it really so simple as a choice between going or staying away from that one mission? Or was it more than that, a darker, more horrible selection between having her friends or having the one she loved? Was it really as terrible as either–or?

_Nope…not going there…_Sakura gave a slight shake of her head to dispell the thoughts.

"I'll leave you to rest before he gets here." Tsunade said gently. Confused, Sakura turned to look at her teacher.

"He?" She asked, concerned. She hadn't really been listening, what with all the internal chatter and confusion she had to wade through just to get her eyes to blink.

Instead of answering, Tsunade sighed and closed her eyes. She didn't have the energy to explain everything to Sakura more than once, no matter how fragile her present state. Best to just let her find things out the old-fashioned way and deal with them, like Tsunade should have forced her to a long time ago.

"_He_ claims that he's restored most of the basic infrastructure, despite you finding out a way to make your chakra into a microscopic incendiery. Your life force practically tried to burn it's way out of you." Tsunade went on, smoothing out some imperceptable wrinkles on Sakura's bed sheet as she spoke.

"Lucky me…" Sakura submitted dryly.

"You _were_ lucky, Sakura, don't forget that." Tsunade hissed, but Sakura could see a slight smile on her lips, and feel the half-hearted nature of her censure. Her teacher wasn't mad, at least not wholly. She was miffed to be sure, but at the moment she appeared more happy and relieved than anything else.

_I must've scared her…_Sakura felt a large piece of ice beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. She felt guilty, maybe a little more than usual. It wasn't, however, enough to cause any major changes to her little side project at the moment. She and her clones still had work to do.

"Easy there, tiger," Tsunade pressed a firm hand to Sakura's shoulder, trying to force her back down onto her bed. "The only thing you're gonna be doing is maintaining your present location. That's an order."

"Can you even do that?" Sakura growled, but she could see the corner of Tsunade's mouth quirk upwards in another small, almost imperceptible smirk.

_Geuss that means 'yes'…_Sakura frowned as her teacher patted her hand with a patronizing smile and exited the hospital room in a smug, satiated, silence.

_Damn you ba-chan…_Sakura glared at the door, attempting to burn through it with rightcheous indignation.

"Rest now," Shizune lay a soft kissed atop of Sakura's head as she followed after Tsunade.

Sakura waited until Shizune's soft, pattering, footsteps were a nothing but a whisper down the hall before she tried getting out of bed. The moment her toes hit the floor an Anbu was there, arms crossed, and looking none too pleased with her. If she hadn't been so annoyed with the situation, Sakura probably would have been impressed.

Sakura started to explain, but the Anbu in the wolf mask***(double check Kakashi's anbu uniform)*** held up a hand, motioning silently to the hospital bed behind her, "I am merely here to keep the peace, Akiri-chan."

_Kakashi…_Sakura glared at him. She could already feel the prescence of his trademark smirk beneath that mask. Was he actually enjoying this? What had Tsunade written on the mission scroll for this shady, little, security-detail?

_Misson:__ Keep Sakura in her bed by any means possible or the monument will be decorated in your entrails?_

Sakura could really imagine _that_ mission breifing going over well.

"Define 'peace', exactly…" Sakura leaned back against her bed, but made no movement to get back into it. She didn't get to where she was in her career by listening to every little order she was given, no matter how important others labeled them. She could tell this small defiant action irked him, but then again, he had accepted the mission scroll (willingly or otherwise).

"Peace," Kakashi began in his classic 'Teacher' voice, "as in the normal, non-warring condition of a nation or group. Emphasis on _non_-warring."

"Might need a little clarity into what you consider to be an act of war, Sensei," Sakura smirked.

"Haruno Sakura," Uh-oh, he was using her full name now, "Let me make one thing abundantly clear right now. If you don't behave, I will make sure that you and the Nara are assigned to missions on opposite ends of the continent," he said calmly.

"The _no_ contact type of missions," he added darkly.

_Well, that wouldn't be convenient…_Sakura pouted.

Kakashi's threat was lightly veiled in his usual jovial tone, but Sakura knew he was more than serious. Leave it to Kakashi to threaten her love life when she was down. Why couldn't he just hit her when he was mad, instead of resorting to blackmail and manipulation?

_You should talk…_Ichi said.

"I would ask how you knew about it, but then I'm sure I'd regret the details," Sakura leaned back with a scowl, "Did you know that's considered cruel and unusual _torture_ in some countries?" which merely earned her a chuckle from her gaurd.

"The Hokage infered I use 'any means nessisary' to keep you on bed-rest."

_Knew it…_Sakura growled, crossly.

"Infered?" She raised a brow. Kakashi again motioned for her to get back in bed, but it seemed she actually needed his help to manage it without tearing any of her sutures. Whatever injuries Ichi or Ni had sustained must have been vast, because Sakura could feel the stitches tugging at her tender skin down both sides of her torso and continuing in slashing jabs down her back, like someone had been using one of her clones as pieces of wood to whittle on. Silently, Sakura wondered if she was missing any larger, visible, chunks of herself, but a quiet assesment proved all her major appendanges to be intact…more or less. Her leg wasn't hurting as much as usual, which was strange, for her. In the months since she'd recieved the injury, the physical pain had been a brutal, but constant companion throughout the collapse of everything else in her life. Now, in the still, almost idylic, quiet, aftermath of the pain's demise, Sakura found herself oddly regretting the loss.

"Infered, threatened, promised…it's really all the same when you get down to it." Kakashi helped her into bed and pulled the sheets up around her shoulders, tucking her in carefully. He was treating her like a soap bubble, something almost too fragile to touch without breaking.

"Who's coming to see me, Kakashi?" Sakura asked softly, hoping to appeal to her former sensei's more compassionet side—where ever the Hell that was now-a-days.

"I only know what I overheard," Kakashi spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, "and I don't think you'd want to know…" His voice dipped sadly, making the last note of his tone seem more like a whimper than a word.

"Please, Kakashi," Sakura asked, softly nudging his hand with what few fingers she could still command with any surety. Kakashi remained silent for a moment, mulling over Sakura's rather out-of-character plea before he sighed, gently laying a caloused hand upon her head as he smiled at her. She could see him searching his mind for a neutral answer, something confusing and vague enough to keep him out of trouble, but informative enough to keep her from threatening him with some serious bodily harm in their next match. He didn't get a chance to divulge much though, as the door to Sakura's room suddenly slid open in a quiet smoothness, ushering in a new figure, one which Sakura had earnestly hoped she would never have to face again.

"Haruno-san…" A familiar voice stated cooly from the doorway. Kakashi stood and bowed, respectfully, causing Sakura to look up just as she heard the door to her room slide shut.

_Oh, you've gotta be kidding me…_Sakura would rather scratch her own eyes out than face this man. It was now official–she was going to _kill_ the Hokage.

"Hyuga-Sama…" Sakura managed a slight, painful bob of her head, the closest thing she could get to a bow at the moment. Still, no matter the decorum she attempted or actually managed to execute, she knew it would never be good enough. Not for him, anyways.

The stoic Hyuga clan lord was obviously none too pleased to be in her prescence, the barely concealed scowl below his stoney façade making his personal sentiments all too apparent. Be it in service to the Hokage, or no, Sakura could tell that the Hyuga lord was silently enraged about being summoned, let alone to help _her_, of all foul and unholy things. Sakura couldn't say she honestly blamed him, all things considering. If the roles had been reversed, and _he_ had been the one to give _her_ the news about Hinata's last mission, she probably would have hated him more than anything else in the world, too.


	15. Chapter 15 : Scar

Chp 15 : Scar

* * *

For a moment Shikamaru wondered if his lungs really had been forced back around his spine—or if it only felt that way.

_Dammit woman…what did you do now?_ Shikamaru took another deep, controlled breath, trying to ignore the blistering pain radiating from his chest. It had to have been a landmine, or a large chakra infused attack to create this much pain, and over such a large physical area.

_I'm gone three days and she's playing with bombs…_Shikamaru groaned to himself. He was going to have to talk to Sakura about the use of incindiaries while he was on missions.

Now, was perhaps not the right time to wish he'd done all those bothersome chakra-fusion calculations _before_ he'd given Sakura the mark. Just so the side effects wouldn't have come as such a _damn_ surprise.

Sai had observed that his acting Captain seemed to be in a state of physical discomfort, and said so aloud, just 'in-case' the Captain himself had not noticed. Sai was rewarded promptly with a sharp, "Can-it, Sai!" that sounded less than friendly.

The young, stone-faced Uzumaki thought it would be far more intelligent, and in his own best interests to comply. He knew when his Captain was getting close to that border between a passing interest and serious consideration of strangling him, and he logically deduced–for the sake of the mission, of course–that it was better to give the man as much space as humanly possible.

There was something on the Captain's mind that was bearing down on him hard, and Sai knew better than to ask. Part of him thought he already knew the answer, anyways.

Sai Uzumaki had seen a great many strange and unexplainable things in his years with Danzo, and then following with team seven before it all fell apart. Still, even Sai had to admidt that the idiotic Kyubbi container, from which he had borrowed his surname, had surprised him on more than one occasion with his tacticle deftness–despite all obvious obstacles.

Naruto had truly been a force in and of himself.

Sakura, on the other hand, had been one of those things that Sai still couldn't quite explain, no matter how many books he read on the subject of human females. There didn't appear, it seemed, to be enough words in the whole of human language to sum up this one, or any singular female in all of her odd entirety–a fact Sai found both troubling, and infuriating.

The sole female member of his chunin team had presented a very interesting problem, as regarded her own emotional and tactical conduct. And as such, Sai had immediately sought to reconcile the issue via scientific and psychological research. If he could understand the source of the problem, he believed that he could then solve it.

Or, so goes the theory.

What Sai discovered, much to his surprise, was that shinobi like Sakura and Naruto were not the exception or outlier he had previously assumed. They were the rule.

To say that Sakura's pecculiarities were _inherently_ _female_ was, to put it plainly, incorrect (as well as apparently insulting). For, though emotions had once governed a great deal of Sakura's own tacticle methodology, the same could also be said of most of her teammates, deep down anyways.

Sai had always strangely admired the spirited, unbridled tempests contained within the small confined space that was his former female teammate. In many ways, Sai supposed he felt something akin to "jelousy", though still a rather foreign concept in his experience with other human beings, towards Sakura and her strong often emotionaly driven instincts and actions.

They had served her well, and there was little anyone could say now that would persuade anyone else from thinking anything less.

Over the years, Sai realized he had somehow unconciously adopted his female teammate as living proof that an emotionally charged upbringing did not make one an inefficient warrior, but rather, more of an unfathomable paradox of both emotion _and_ discipline. It had created, in Sakura at least, an inmeasurable reserve of tireless perserverence that Sai could only observe from afar with a little less than highly proffessional envy.

Sia had still to answer himself as to what made such a person as Sakura so adaptable to the most adverse of circumstances and events. Was it simply a matter of suffering that made one strong, beacause Sakura had surely had that, or was there more to it than that?

"Sai?"

Sai raised his eyes to look at Shikamaru, moving with caution as he studied the young captain carefully, searching for the smallest hint that would tell him what was going on in that sharp, iron-clad Nara-mind of his.

"Did you feel anything? When your brother died?"

Sai was taken aback by the rather personal nature of the inquirey.

"I do not understand the relevance that an unrelated event in my previous genin history has anything to do with the mission at hand, sir." Sai spoke curtly, effeciantly if not a little bit cooly. Shikamaru didn't even have to wonder if he'd hit a nerve there.

"Did. You. _Feel_. Anything?" Shikamaru repeated, "it's a simple question, Sai."

"I fail to see the relevance of–"

"I know, I know–I get it alright? You don't want to talk about it, okay." Shikamaru replied sharply in agitation. Sai was surprised. He'd never known the captain to get visibly frustrated over anything. Well, anything that didn't count Sakura–

…_.Wait a second…._

_Oh, for the love of…_ Sai cursed inwardly as everything slowly slid into place.

Many things were suddenly starting to make much more sense in the larger chaotic picture he now found himself a part of.

"What is wrong with Sakura?" Sai demanded sternly. He would demand to know _how_ Shikamaru knew anything was wrong to begin with later.

Shikamaru shot Sai a cautious, gaurded glance over his shoulder, careful not to lose sight of their path through the trees.

"I don't know," Shikamaru growled back, "and that's what worries me."

_Damn you woman…_Shikamaru grumbled. He couldn't have just gone for the girl with the flower-shop, could he? No, little Nara had to have the best, and the best just happened to also be a cosmic magnet for–

_Trouble_…Shikamaru sighed deeply. Somewhere in the after life his ancestors were laughing at him, he could feel it.

"Captain, the enemy is approaching from the west. It appears that they are boxing us in," Sai reported, sporting a grossly inappropriate smile that Shikamaru didn't have the heart or energy to correct at the moment.

Honestly, the kid looked like Death on Holiday grinning all wide and eerie like that, so eerie that Shikamaru had to suppress a shudder.

_Now, _he breathed deeply, _is not the time to get distracted._

"Are you well, Captain?" Sai inquired, sounding more curious than concerned.

"Ask me in an hour," Shikamaru shot back curtly.

"But sir, by that time–"

"An hour, Sai." Shikamaru returned sharply, signaling a most definite end to the conversation.

* * *

In general, Sakura was not used to being forced to remain in company she didn't like; or that didn't like her. In her work, it was common to suffer a fool or two, and perhaps eventually a bully from time to time. Sadly, one major factor differentiated the two spheres acutely.

At work Sakura could kill bad company.

Here?...uh, not so much.

The man with the pearl white eyes just sat there, studying what Sakura assumed was her every visible flaw; with a look of intense scrutiney that was so sharp you could have sliced a brick in half.

_Well __**somebody's**__ been working on their glare…_

"Is there a point to this?" Sakura found herself growling, "I mean, I like a good old dressing down of personal defects as much as the next, but–"

The silent man beside her bed raised a hand, waving it in way that was all but begging her to shut up.

Two minutes and already she was giving him a headache.

That was a record, even for her.

She heard a soft, almost meloncoly chuckle erupt from the man at her side, and cracked open one eye to survey the scene. Streaks of grey speckled his deep black hair in clean, smooth lines of solid color.

The Hyugai appeared to be laughing.

Correction: He _was_ laughing.

_At __**her**_.

"I missed something," Sakura straightened stiffly, carefully clutching the bed sheets up to her waist lest she give the Clan Lord a flash of indescency compliments of ill-fitting hospital gowns everywhere.

The quiet, wheezing chuckles of the normally stone faced man lasted for several long moments until the Clan Lord seemed to have somply worn himself out.

"Finished?" Sakura asked dryly. Hiashi could only nod, wiping small streaks of mysterious water from his eyes.

"Thank you," He said unexpectedly.

Quietly Sakura waited, with baited breath, for the other shoe to drop. For the anger to appear in the older man's eyes, and for his voice to grow cold and indifferent, and for his eyes to glare down on her in disgust and disdain.

Oddly, though, It never came. There was no malice in his tone, no contempt hidden in his words, bitterness or accusation laced between his vowels.

"_Why_ are you here?" Sakura hadn't saught to sound rude, but she was growing tired in his prescence. He was toying with her. Treating her like a large, sleeping animal, and he; a very curious little boy with a stick.

_Must not kill a clan lord, must not kill a clan lord,_ Sakura breathed deeply, trying to cool her impatience and anger with nothing more than a psychological arsenal of rote rehearsal techniques imparted on her during interrogation training.

"I was summoned by the hokage to see to the collapsed chakra points of some failed apprentice of hers, who appears to have gotten themselves into a spot." He smiled that dashing, arrogent Hyugai smile that just screamed 'I'm better than you' on every possible front. But rather than focus on the words, as Hyugai sama had never really been one to say what he meant, Sakura focused more on his expression.

There, in the corners and edges of his looks she could see beyond his amusement to the heart he seldom showed, or wore in any open or visible way. There was despair there, and worry, frustration and anger, all of which Sakura could attribute to being stuck in a room with…well, _herself_.

The anger and frustration she knew, as it had hung around the clan lord like a stone since Hinata's last mission. The despair she understood, given what he had lost. The worry though…was a little more than perplexing.

"_Why_," Sakura repeated firmly, "–are you _here_?"

The Hyugai Lord just smirked smugly, looking at her with an impressed sort of awe in his eyes. She had caught him. The only question was, caught him doing _what_ exactly?

"There are very few people who surprise me, child," The Hyugai smirked, seeming almost proud of his infallible inability to be impressed by anyone other than his own kin.

"Lemme geuss, I'm one of the lucky few," Sakura growled. She didn't like where this was going. It sounded just like the lead up to a lecture, the kind her father used to give when he would catch her coming home late after a night out with Naruto, or Hinata and Kiba. Sakura's childhood bedroom window had always squeeked a little apon opening, betraying evidence of her late night exploits to anyone within a half-mile radius of the house.

_Sometimes being a ninja just isn't enough…_Sakura smiled a little, inwardly, at the almost pleasant memory. It was hard to see it as being several years old in her mind. Sometimes it felt so far away that it was like it had never happened at all, any of it. That there had never been something dark looming over their heads in the background of their wonderful, happy life together.

_But there was,_ Sakura sneered, _there always was… _

"You know," Sakura said aloud, not really caring if the Hyugai was listening. "Those first few days in the hospital when I was sick, Hinata was here every day with some vile vitamen infusion or chakra filtering agony…"

Hiashi looked thoughful for a moment, his face absent of his usual self-satisfied Hyugai smirk.

"I taught her that, you know. How to filter impurities from chakra." He said, "She picked it up so fast that I could barely keep up with her curiosity. She'd run me ragged with questions long before I'd even thought to question her about it. I have to admit, I had wondered why she'd taken such a sudden intrest in filtering techniques last year…"

He might as well have said 'It's your fault, you stupid girl', but he didn't have to.

Sakura's mind was doing a fine job tearing her apart all on it's own.

"Now you know," Sakura just wanted him to leave. Did they really have to talk? Couldn't he just administer the treatment and leave? Didn't he want to be rid of her as much as she did of him?

_Which do you think he'll go for? _Ichi mused, _the aorta, or the jugular?_

Strangely, the Hyugai Lord sighed and leaned forward in his chair.

_Inching close. Must be going for the jugular, _Ichi's voice snickered, her dark giggles echoing off of the cavernous underpinnings of Sakura's blackest thoughts.

_No idea how you got down there,_ Sakura irked an eyebrow, _but you'll stay there if you know what's good for you…_

_Oh, _Ichi mocked, albeit softly, _somebody's cranky…_

_And somebody's starting a countdown to their own demise…_Sakura countered, keeping her face as calm and serene as Kakashi had taught her. From the corner of her eye Sakura could almost make out the white haired nin in the corner of the room winking at her.

Almost.

A warm, battle worn hand wrapped itself around her own gently, cradling her fingers like she were some fragile newborn thing. Her own father had often done the very same with her, whenever she was being difficult. It was his way of telling her it was okay. Okay to be angry, okay to be hurt, mean, or bitter – if that's what she needed to get her through whatever mire of emotions she found herself tangled in.

Then reality hit, and Sakura suddenly realized _who_ it was that was holding her hand.

_Oh, you've gotta be shitting me…_Sakura had to wrestle with her usual knee jerk reaction, trying to keep her eyes from rolling up and over in an obvious act of incredulity.

"Sir?" Sakura quietly, her voice almost cracking under the strain and confusion the clan Lord's simple action was causing her.

Why he felt compelled to touch her at all was perplexing to Sakura. Surely he had to know what those hands had done. Had to know that they were the same hands that put his daughter in a body bag. Her fingers signed the death certificate. Her arms carried the body to the morgue. How could he even touch her after that? Sakura couldn't comprehend what the old man was thinking (or if he was simply having a mental breakdown Hyugai-style).

"My daughter put all of the knowledge and strength she possessed into trying to save you, Haruno-san. That is no simple gesture to a Hyugaii." He shook his head slightly.

"Yeah," Sakura wasn't quite sure she understood where this was going.

"I'm also not as young as I used to be," He began again.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him.

"I no longer have boundless reserves of energy with which to shoulder the burdens of others aside from my own family, and yet–" He smirked, "I find myself curiously attentive to the wellbeing of certain self-destructive female shinobi, as of late. Now, why do you think that is, Miss Haruno?"

"You enjoy human suffering?" Sakura offered dryly.

Kakashi cleared his throat with a cough by the doorway. Sakura looked up, meeting his eyes as he gave her a very pointed glare. Sakura knew exactly what he was trying to communicate with _that_ look.

_Be nice, _was what he meant, though Sakura was sure what he was really thinking was '_Shut up, you frickin' idiot_.

She could see Kakashi hiding a tiny smirk beneath his ever present mask, the only sign of solidarity he could show in the Hyguai Lord's prescence. Sakura immediately felt better, more centered and calm, as if the waves rolling inside of her had suddenly stilled.

_**I**__ need to learn how to look at people like that…_Ichi noted quietly.

_Shut up, back to the darkness with you demon, _ Sakura rubbed her temple with an irritated hiss.

"I'm far too old, Miss Haruno, to be placing blame upon the shoulders of those who happen to be unnaturally willing and able to take it." Hiashi gave her a knowing look, an entirely different conversation playing upon his face and eyes than the one he was guiding out loud at present.

There was a lifetime of unspoken words and emotions in those eyes, and Sakura couldn't help but feel that this was as close to an apology as the Hyugai went.

_Hot damn, he's gonna kill us…_Ichi grumbled from the darkness of her mind.

_You think everybody is trying to kill us…_Sakura rubbed her eyes as a familiar throbbing began to flower behind her corneas. She was over due for her injections, and boy was she feeling it. Her nerve endings were throwing a tantrum like some chronic two-year old hopped up on pixie stix and speed, and her lungs were threatening to cut off all air flow to her brain if she didn't comply soon.

All of that wouldn't be very useful, however, without clear, sturdy chakra highways to carry it. And that would probably require accepting the Hyugai's apology and allowing him to rebuild the interstate, so to speak..

_Seems we're our own worst enemy, yeah?…_Ichi snorted, as Sakura quietly looked up, meeting Kakashi's gaze over Hiashi's shoulder. Kakashi gave her a silent, but solemn nod, a sure sign he approved of the clan lord's offered armistice.

"It would be a great honor to continue the mission my daughter began with you, Miss Haruno." The Hyugai said simply. He looked at her then, as though waiting for some kind of confirmation, some permission that would allow him to move past the guilt he'd gathered in his campaign against Sakura's former prescence in his daughter's life.

It took several long moments for Sakura to realize she was staring (mouth ajar in a lovely and dignified way), and another full minute before she understood that this paticular question was _not_ rhetorical. The clan lord wanted an answer.

"Um…" Sakura's mind was drawing a blank, but not because she was drowning in confusion. Instead, the edges of Sakura's vision grew soft and fuzzy, and her head felt as though it were floating away.

The last thing she heard was Kakashi yelling for a medic.


	16. Chapter 16 : Seisuru

Chp 16: Seisuru (to get the better of)

* * *

**_Eight months prior…_**

There was a ringing in her ears that reverberated throughout the inside of her head, bouncing back and forth between her ears as she tried to find her balance. Sakura tried to look around, but the smoke and fire eating through the forest had created a thick, dense, grey fog that clouded her line of sight. It looked as though the sky was trying to eat the very Earth, and the Earth was losing. There was shouting, screaming, and the sound of battle as warriors, both friend and foe alike, racing to and fro, each in attempt to stop the other from advancing. Suddenly, a flash of white cut across Sakura's foggy vision.

"Sakura!" It was Kakashi.

_Damnit_. He'd found her. She'd really been hoping he would be too busy in all of this.

"You're bleeding–" He pressed his hand to the wound on her stomach, as though holding it there would somehow put all the blood she'd lost back in. But Sakura batted his hands away, snickering in a odd, low tone as though the entire thing was increadibly funny in some way, instead of frightening.

"Leave me alone, sensei," She tried to shrug him off, but the bloodloss had weakened her, and she couldn't do much more than raise her hand a little in objection.

"We need to get you to a medic, now–" Kakashi went to scoop her up, but it was then, in that second, that she found the last of her strength. The blade of her Katana pressed hard against Kakashi's throat to keep him from advancing in his attempt to save her.

"What are you doing?" He bellowed.

"Leave–me…alone," Sakura hissed, pressing her lips into a thin, grim line to show her resolve. Suddenly, the look on Kakashi's face told her that he knew. His eyes widened in understanding as his brows narrowed into an icy glare in her direction.

"You think they would want you to die like this?"

_Oh, he is pissed…_Sakura panted.

"It's honorable–"

"And easy." He commented sharply, "Running away won't do you any good, Sakura, not even from life."

"Wanna bet?" Sakura smirked, and for the first time, Kakashi noticed how dark her eyes had become. Once her eyes had held the whole of the sky in them, they were so bright. Now, the pale, green orbs glared back at him as though the eyes of a corpse. There was no life there, not even that Kakashi could see.

"Shino needs you," He put in simply.

"Shino's got family. They _killed_ mine." Sakura could feel her arm, and the katana blade begin to shake in her grip. She could only keep up the lie for so long. Sooner, much sooner than she would have liked, she was going to have to face the simple truth that if she fought Kakashi now, she would lose–and in more ways than one.

"Granted," Kakashi nodded, his voice calm and resolute, despite the obvious strain in his muscles as he willed himself to stay put, to not push her any further, or else…

_Kami…I know we don't talk a lot…but if ever there was a time to help, now would be it…_Kakashi closed his eyes as the smoke from the fires began to gather around them, trying to keep his bearings admidst all the chaos of the battle.

"It's too bad you weren't strong enough to get past this," Kakashi purred darkly, baiting her by jabbing a figurative knife into every wound he knew was still there, "I didn't really understand why Sasuke thought you so weak, why he seemed so resolved to kill you when you came after him. He probabaly thought he would have been doing you, and the world, a favor…"

"Shut-up!" Sakura screamed. The action agrivated her wound. She buckled over, crying out at the pain as she huddled herself there on the forest floor, praying she would die before Kakashi could get her this figurative or literal _help_.

_Please…_Sakura prayed bitterly, _let me go…I want my family…please…_It was this last thought, the images of those she had lost alive and well in her mind that hurt her most cruelly. Her physical wounds were nothing compared to the pain left by much deeper scarring. Or, rather, by the empty spaces left behind by those who had been torn from her heart. It was bad enough that the world seemed upheaved and unbalanced with the loss of one human life, let alone several and in such quick succession.

"Sakura," Kakashi knelt towards her now, desperate to get her out of here, and away from the battle.

"I'll make you a wager," His eyes crinkled in that same hallmark smile he'd given to them all as children, "if you can manage to tell me what I have in my vest pocket, I will let you do as you please…"

No way. It was too easy. Surely not even Kakashi would be such a fool, even if she was distracted by the pain in her gut. He should know that she'd been taught to work through it, just as she had.

"A fire-bomb," Sakura panted heavily, trying to push herself upright. Kakashi made an annoying little sound, a sort of mumble that simply informed her that she was wrong.

"Ichi Ichi Novel?"

Kakashi gave her a serious look.

"Another weapon…" Sakura collasped again. Dammit, she wasn't even able to sit up now. She was completely at his mercy…again. Kakashi chuckled quietly.

"I suppose you could call it that, but not exactly…" Kakashi unzipped his Jounin vest and reached inside it, his hand disappearing completely for a moment. When his fingers reappeared, Sakura's eyes went wide in surprise and confusion.

It was a picture, well worn and creased from years of being pulled and shoved in and out of his jounin vest pockets.

There were four figures.

_A team, s_he finally realized.

But not just any team. It was _their_ team. Team Seven.

Carefully, Sakura reached out a hand to touch the picture gently, tracing the happy faces of her former teamates. Back before anything had split or broken, left or been taken away. How many times had she tried to imagine what they would look like now if they had stayed, if they had all grown up together? If she had been strong enough to protect them, even from themselves?

"Not all weapons are steel and blade, " Kakashi said, "and the best solutions often don't involve weapons at all." He smiled a little beneath his mask.


	17. Chapter 17 : Kokoro

Chapter 17: Kokoro (Heart)

* * *

She couldn't open her eyes, though whether that was out of sheer exhaustion or mere overzelous use of sedatives by the hospital staff, Sakura was unsure. She heard the soft, irritating beaping of a heart monitor nearby, and could tell there were more tubes in her arms, due to the fact she was strapped down.

Sakura tried to gather together the pieces of what she could recall. Kakashi had been yelling. The Hyuggaii clan Lord had been there, though she couldn't remember whether he stayed afterwards.

_Must've siezed…_Sakura felt like she'd locked herself in a narrow, dusty closet in her own head, and all she could do was pace the floor waiting for someone to find her and let her out again.

_Little help here, hellion…_Sakura felt about in her psyche blindly, hoping to come across something, anything she could use to wake up again.

_Oh, now we're friends, huh?_ Ichi's familiar, irritated groan sounded like the most wonderful thing she'd ever heard in her life.

_What's going on?_ Sakura could feel the strange, invassive pull of a trache tube pumping air in and out of her lungs.

_We're on auto-pilot…literally…_Ichi snickered at her own bad joke. Sakura couldn't help but imagine her eyes rolling at this.

A gentle click, like that of a door lock, drew Sakura's attention to a space a little ways from her bed. She could tell it was farther than she remembered. That meant that Tsunade had switched her to another room, or ward.

_Probably intensive care…_Her body was like a block of ice, cold and limp, dead and dormant–only she hadn't exactly evicted the premises, so to speak. She was like puppet with ragged strings, able to go about it's normal actions, but only in so faint a way that it barely seemed she was moving at at all.

Suddenly, someone spoke.

"What are you doing here?" The voice was female, soft and confidant, clear and concise.

_Hanabi…_Sakura couldn't believe it. She hadn't seen Hanabi in over a year, and now the girl shows up in her IC unit? _What the hell?_ didn't even begin to cover it.

"Probably the same thing you are, nurse." A man's voice replied deeply, "trying to hold on to what little bit of your sister that remains."

Sakura could hear Hanabi scoff.

"Don't mock her legacy, Hana." Hiashi's voice was low and polite, but yet implied some sort of threat. He was defending her? Good Lord, what was wrong with this man?

"Some legacy," Hana huffed, "some stupid, dying woman who can't even get the dying part right."

"Watch your tone, Hanabi!" Hiashi hissed sharply.

_Uh-oh…_Ichi sang gleefully_…somebody's in troooooouble…_

"Why? Afraid I might wake sleeping beauty?" Hanabi's footsteps crossed the room to the edge of Sakura's bed. Sakura could feel the slight chill as the younger woman cast a dark shadow across her form.

_Man, feels like Hell just froze over…_Ichi chittered_…how do these people __**do**__ that?_

_Jelouse much?_ Sakura twittered. Ichi merely laughed.

_You have no idea…_She cackled in reply.

"You have made your own descision, Hanabi, I cannot dissued you," Hiashi sighed, "though I wonder you have the energy to sustain such anger."

Hanabi chuckled slightly, darkly. The air seemed to cool even more at the sound of her hollow laugh hanging in the air like icicles.

"It's not as hard as you might think," Hanabi growled lightly, "once you get used to it."

Sakura didn't want to listen to this anymore. This wasn't the sweet, caring Hanabi she remembered. The one who used to climb into bed with her on the nights she slept at the compound, and keep her awake with question after question about chakra control and the medicinal arts.

"_Have you ever brought anybody back from the dead?" Hanabi whispered to Sakura beneath the blanket. Sakura, who was pretending to be asleep, turned to Hanabi with her eyes closed._

_ "Once," she said simply, leaving it at that._

_ "Well?" Hanabi was almost giggling in her excitement. Sakura supposed she couldn't help it. Sakura was eighteen, and was one of the youngest members of Anbu at the time. Hanabi was so much younger, smaller and inexperienced, it wasn't hard to understand why she worshipped Hinata and her sister's teammates so much. _

"_What was it like?" She snuggled in closer to Sakura, tugging on the pillow she was using to steal a bit more comfort in her prescence._

"_It was–" Sakura didn't really know how to begin. She'd never had anyone except Ino asking her about what the edge of life and death actually felt like. Not that she was an expert or anything._

"_It was like trying to catch fireflies." She said finally. _

_Hanabi quirked a brow in question, causing Sakura to go searching her mind to explain herself more clearly to the young chunnin._

"_Their lives were so fragile, so small when I got to them. It was like trying to catch a lightening bug in the dark, when they keep running away from you." Sakura explained softly, "They flickered on and off, just like fireflies do. I would look for the light, and catch every one I possibly could, but there was always a few I would miss, no matter what."_

"_So, what you mean is," Hanabi said, smiling in the dark, "it was mostly based on being quick, lucky, and having a good bug jar."_

"_You got it," Sakura chuckled, "spot on. Now go to sleep."_

_ Hanabi grumbled, but eventually, did as she was told. The kid slept like a brick. A trait that never failed to entertain Sakura the following mornings._

"She's _not_ Hina, _Otoko_, she never will be," Hanabi said sharply, "and _neither_ will I."

Hiashi let out a deep, almost despairing sigh from somewhere in the room. Sakura was having a hard time pinpointing his location due to the accoustical differences between the ICU and regular hospital rooms. The ICU had tile flooring, making for more resonance and echoes, and the hospital had linolium, which had a tendancy to muffle.

"I'm all too aware of that, Hana," Hiashi mumbled, "no need to remind me."

"Seems there is," Hanabi sneered, "since you're here instead of home."

"I'm here because I want to be," Hiashi started.

"Well," There was a rustling of fabric as Sakura heard Hanabi shrug, "I suppose we all have our failings."

* * *

She dreamed she was twelve years old again. Small and insecure in her forma nd abilities, constantly second-geussing her ever breath and movement as she struggled to keep up with her teammates.

_Her team…_She could see them in front of her now, sitting down on the jagged, broken ground of their old practice field scarfing down ramen like it was air.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto held his chopsticks up in the air, waving her down like she was coming in for a landing. She merely smiled, flicking a few stray pink hairs over one ear as she approached them at her own pace.

Naruto rose abruptly to greet her with a hug, but Sasuke grabbed his foot, tripping their over-enthusiastic teammate face first into the ground. Sasuke smirked. Sakura winced.

The sun was shinning in this dream. She could feel it on her back, baking the pale, sensitive skin on her neck and arms that rarely saw daylight.

"Long time no see, pinkie," Sasuke mumbled, brushing his dirty hands off on the grass. Naruto grunted in agreement from his position face-down on the ground. Sakura was surprised he was still concious, let alone listening. He also hadn't once threated Sasuke's life or livelihood, which was strange.

"What do you mean?" Sakura squinted in the bright sunlight, holding up a hand for shade, "–I saw you both this morning."

Sasuke seemed to find her words amusing, and scoffed at her with that slight, barely perceptable Uchiha smirk of his. Naruto blearily raised his head up from the grass.

"We missed you!" He exclaimed, much too loud for Sakura's liking.

"Right," She snorted, which made Naruto frown deeply. He looked like someone had just kicked his puppy…or, any puppy really.

"But Sakura-chan!" He grumped, "four years is a _reeeeeeeeally_ long time!"

_What?_…Sakura froze. She was a genin in this dream. Genin Naruto hadn't left yet. He wouldn't for another three years, if Sakura recalled correctly. And Sasuke–Sakura glanced at her stone-faced former teammate in his twelve year old form–he had yet to even be bitten by the powerlust that drove him now.

"Honestly, Sakura," Sasuke snorted quietly, "the _Nara_? Really?" Naruto, likewise, rolled his eyes. Sakura was immediately on the defensive.

"Hey!" Sakura waved a finger at the Uchiha in warning. "You-"

"What about me?" Naruto piped up.

"_Neither_ of you–" Sakura tapped her temple pointedly, "are welcome up here."

Sasuke crossed his arms with a simple shake of his head, and despite his serene projection of absolute control, Sakura could swear she heard the faint whisper of a Uchiha chuckling.

"Shikamaru?" Naruto drew himself up onto his knees, a perplexed expression clouding his usuualy bright and inquisitive blue eyes.

"So? What of it?" Sakura snapped, irritated. Naruto pondered this for a moment. Suddenly, a large, bright, lecherous smile crawled across his face.

"He any good with that shadow jutsu?" Naruto riased his brows suggestively. Sasuke merely scowled silently, boring holes into the back of Naruto's oblivious blonde head.

"Eww…" Sakura groaned, covering her mouth with her hand. Nevermind that Shikamaru was good with his shadow jutsu. The fact that it's adaptability extended beyound the edge of the battlefeild was just a little something Sakura thought should be kept to oneself, so to speak.

"You're disgusting–" Sasuke flicked the blonde in the back of the head a little harder than nessisary. Sakura thought she heard an audible _thunk_ when he did it, like a kunai hitting a hollow tree stump in the woods.

_Wouldn't that explain a lot…_Sakura closed her eyes to hide her instinctual roll.

"Oww…" Naruto whinned as he rubbed what had to be the almost bald spot on the back of his head caused by years of similar abuse. Kakashi used to call it 'character building excercises', but it became clearer over time that it was only really ever intended to show Naruto when he was being an idiot when words and disapproving looks were simply not enough. Sakura could only shake her head and laugh at the two of them. This, whatever this was, felt real. So vivid, warm, and true–she could almost find herself believing that the sad, hopeless future that she lived in the afterward was nothing more than a horrible nightmare she'd had the night before.

"You don't seem that surprised to see us," Sasuke observed in his typical monotone.

"I probably have a large amount of _highly_ reactive, heavy narcotics in my blood stream, guys…let's just say I'm glad it's you and not some tripped out Tskukoyami." Sakura pointed her arms pointedly.

The boys glanced at eachother curiously, an entire silent conversation passing between them that Sakura could all but put into words.

"I told you she missed us," Naruto smirked, turning his large cerullian blue orbs back to her, as though taking her in her entirity for the first time.

"Hn." Was the only response the Uchiha made in reply. The familiar push and pull of the boys' warm, well-worn banter tugged at something inside Sakura that she thought she'd shut up tight a long time ago. She felt, to put it simply, like she was finally _home_, for the first time in such a long, long time.

"The clones were awesome," Naruto quirked, smirking at Sasuke, "what an _amazingly_ complex and _powerful_ jutsu. I _wonder_ who taught it to you?"

"Shut-up, dobe," Sasuke snapped icily.

"What? Angry I didn't give it to you?" Naruto teased.

"Probably," Sakura snickered, getting the idea that there was a fireball somewhere in Naruto's immediate future.

"Baka–" The Uchiha grunted simply, looking off to the side at a blade of grass that suddenly demanded his high and mighty attention.

"What does this mean?" Sakura asked blankly. The boys both looked at her simultaneously in surprise.

"You both, being here," She repeated more clearly this time, "what does it mean?"

"There's not much time left," Sasuke muttered to Naruto quietly, who nodded.

"We came to warn you about Kuro–" Naruto started.

"–and Hana." Sasuke added sharply. Naruto sent him an annoyed look.

"I was getting to that, asshole." Naruto snapped smartly.

"Then hurry up, dobe."

"Aww Hell," Naruto grumbled, tossing his hands up in exasperation, "–just talk to flower-girl, will ya'?"

"_Flower_-girl?" Sakura repeated, confused.

"Blonde," Sasuke supplied, "hates you guts?"

"Oh!" Sakura almost had to laugh, "you mean Ino!"

"Yeah, what's-her-face." Naruto gruffed. His hair was starting to appear less and less sharply defined to Sakura's eyes. Almost like he was fading from the top down.

"So I'm to tell Ino that a very convincing, likely drug-induced hallucination told me to say, what–hi?" She tried to hide the near giggle in her tone, but she couldn't help but imagine how Ino would react to _that_ conversation.

Sasuke sighed audibly. His hair was beginning to look more grey than black and this point, and both the boys had developed a sort of foggy quality about them, like looking at a photo from far away.

"Get her drunk, tie her up, whatever–" He said tersely, "just ask her about the flowers."

"Gottcha," Sakura winked playfully.

"I still get the feeling you're not taking this seriously…" Sasuke observed sharply.

"Hey Uchiha?" Sakura asked, garnering both the boys undivided attention. She made sure she annunciated clearly, so that nothing would get lost in the translation.

"_Bite me_–" She smiled as sweetly as she could.

The now incongrunet blob of orange and yellow coloring that was once Naruto doubled over in reponse, and she swear she could hear him, howling in laughter as she was torn away from the dream.

"Hey!"

A sharp pain to the side of her head was what woke her. At least, that's what she thought had woken her.

"What the Hell?" Sakura grumbled, rubbing her head gingerly in annoyance. The shadow beside her bed let out a light chuckle.

"Not Hell," It whispered, "Ino."

"Same thing," Sakura groaned quietly. She was rewarded with another sharp slap up the side of the head.

"Dammit, Ino!" Sakura hissed quietly, "_patient_ in _recovery_!"

"Oh, quit being a baby, I'll heal you later." Ino drew herself closer beside Sakura on the hospital bed, her movements so quiet and indiscernable that Sakura had to wonder if she'd been sneaking around a lot most of her life.

_Probably…_Ichi snickered.

_No one asked you…_Sakura countered silently.

_No one ever does…_Ichi grumbled.

"Why'd you hit me?" Sakura pouted, even though she knew Ino would barely be able to see it.

"You told me to bite-you. It wasn't very polite," Ino said, a faint hint of annoyance laced with warning in her tone.

"I wasn't talking to you," Sakura grumped, "how'd you get past the gaurds anyway?"

Ino merely smirked, pointing to herself as if the answer were obvious.

"Ninja." She said plainly.

"Fine, point taken," Sakura held her head, trying to keep the dull throbbing at bay.

"Here, let me get that for you," Ino raised one of her hands to Sakura's forehead, gently probing the skin for signs of warmth or elevated white blood cell count to denote any new injuries to the area. Slowly, Sakura began to feel the ache between her eyes subside, and her vision begin to clear. She looked up at her friend, feeling better than she had in a long time.

Suddenly, Ino frowned, going quiet in thought.

"What?" Sakura didn't know what she'd done this time. Usuaully Ino told her, pointed it out and waited for an explination…but she never just, waited.

"You don't know do you?" Ino bit her lip, looking so much younger than she was.

_Holy Shoots and Ladders…_Sakura growled to herself as she threw open the doors to the darker part of her mind, yelling for Ichi to make her where abouts known when it hit her–Ichi wasn't there.

_Must've found a way to activate the jutsu from the subconcious…_Sakura felt light headed now. It was like she'd walked outside to suddenly find the back gate was wide-open, and no one was in the yard.

"Know what?" She was almost choking on the words. She couldn't ask all of what she wanted to, but she hoped Ino still understood what she meant.

_The truth, tell me the truth…_Sakura looked at Ino firmly. Ino just sighed, rubbing her temple in anticipation of the headache to come.

"The idiot Uzumaki came back with the Hyugaii," Ino explained carefully. Sakura nodded, the words not quite clicking in her mind.

Noticing that this information didn't seem to have the desired effect, Ino added,

"_Alone_, Sakura. They came back alone."

It took a moment.

At first, Sakura found her sleepy little nuerons getting lost and sidetracked on the word. Alone–what the hell did that mean? The two men returned together, so they obviously weren't completely alone. But then there was the other matter, of _why_ Ino would word their return in such a specific way. Shikamaru had been with them, she'd seen him leave with the Hyugaii right from her apartment a little over a month ago. He'd been there, with them, alive. And now they were back.

_Alone…_Sakura still didn't understand, _they couldn't be alone. Shika–_

Her mind screeched to a screaming halt. She paused the dark line of thought in mid-step, freezing as all the mismatched, jagged little pieces of information suddenly started to form a very clear, horrifying picture.

No, it wasn't possible. This was the man that had outsmarted infamous rougue nin as a genin. This was the boy who had already run his first op, imprisoned an immortal missing nin, and made the bingo books by the time he was thirteen. Shikamaru was a planner. He planned for everything. He had a contigency plan for his contingency plan, for heaven's sakes! This was not someone who just _didn't_ come back–dammit!

_He promised…_Sakura reminded herself, trying to hold onto whatever small shards of hope that she could reach.

_I promised…_Sakura's fingers ghosted over the–now bandaged, chakra infused scar on her shoulder. She felt a slight tickle of energy there, like a little electric shock. It surprised her more than scared her as a flurry of foreign emotions slowly seeped into her mind. Again, it took her a moment.

"Holy shit…" Sakura hissed, tearing at the wrappings on her arm to get at her skin. The scar Shika had created, the small iconic circle within a circle, was glowing faintly amoung the shadows.

"What the fuck is that?" Ino exclaimed, but Sakura could only smile.

_That sly, cheating, lazy little bastard…_Sakura almost wanted to laugh. Neither of them were very good at relinquishing control where the other was concerned, and this only served to drive the point home with a resounding bang.

"That, my darling Nakamura," Sakura snickered, "is what intelligence officers consider the equivalent of jewlary."

"A scar?"

"A link." Sakura corrected, sending a small amount of her own chakra into the skin to strengthen it. Where in the world did Shikamaru learn to create such a seal? This probably explained why he'd been infuriatingly curious about medicinal and chakra storage seals after their jounin exams. The Nara, it seemed, was ahead of the curve.

Shika…Sakura concentrated on the image she had of him in her mind: his eyes, his face, his hands, skin…oh God, his hands…

_Focus…down girl…_Sakura brought her thoughts back to the task at hand.

It took a moment. Almost a solid minute of meditative concentration before she could feel him, but the effect was immediate. The sensation of his heart beat vibrating against her own as though he were laying right beside her in the bed was more than enough to convince Sakura that he was alright…where ever the shadowy bastard was. Sakura sighed in relief, her free hand staying perched atop the scar to maintain what faint connection it provided to it's creator. She had to hand it to the shadow user. He never did anything simply for the sake of doing it, he was far too lazy for that. No, every movement and descision he made was lined up like a row of dominoes. Everything he touched became an event in and of itself, a miracle. And Mr. Miracle worker wasn't about to get his ass handed to him. Thrown at him, maybe, but certainly not handed.

Sakura's eyes refocused, growing darker in thought with each passing moment of silence that followed Ino's revelation.

"Sakura?" Ino nudged Sakura's hand gently, trying to bring her back from whatever place she'd wandered off to. Sakura slowly slid her eyes over to her friend, meeting the blonde's questioning gaze directly.

"I need everything you have on exotic plantlife," Sakura spoke slowly, trying to gather all her thoughts together.

"Plant-life?" Ino had expected crying, screaming, and perhaps even the busting down of a wall or two, but _books_?

"I heard somewhere that some plants can adapt to drastic changes in enviroment to the point of becoming an entirely different species."

"Your _boyfriend_ goes MIA, and you want to learn about.…_Morphogenisis_?"

"I'll need it tonight, if you can get it." Sakura grabbed a pen and paper from the bedside table and began to scribble down a breif to do list with her free hand:

Kuro.

Hana.

Nara.

Ino glanced over the list with a perplexed look on her face.

"Should I be worried?" She asked. Sakura scoffed, nearly laughing.

"Not unless the bingo book gets a few new entries."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ino hissed quietly. Sakura smirked, and the look on her face made Ino shiver from head to toe.

"The last time you had that look, _I_ ended up having to patch up half of Anbu, _Shino _went missing for six weeks, and _Shikamaru_ had to orchestrate an armistice to find him–and _you_, I might add." Ino growled.

Sakura merely snickered at the memory, causing Ino's frown to deepen as she watched her friend return to her list.

This was _not_ going to be good. Not by a long-shot.


	18. Chapter 18 : Janguru

Chapter 18: Janguru (Jungle)

* * *

It had been special once, nothing like those inbred dandielions that went a-spawning every time the wind picked up.

There was a time it had considered itself even more miraculous than Mother Nature's two legged children in their own clumsy beginings – and they didn't even have individual root networks to keep track of.

The world during the plant's infancy had been simple: wake, eat all day long, and sleep. All it had to do back then was stretch out it's petals and leaves to graze on the soft, sweet streams of sunlight that flowed down around it like water, and then simply curl up and go to sleep, waiting until the light came back the next day.

When one day the sun failed to return, the flower somehow knew that things as it knew them had changed. It knew that the light wasn't ever coming back to this part of the mountain. It didn't know how it knew, but it knew it all the same. Just as it knew that the strange fading of the sun these past few seasons was something strange and unnatural. Something terrible had happened, and while it couldn't understand the event per say, it could certainly _feel_ it's influence.

It had been able to feel the world around it with an increasingly alarming clarity over the seasons; The growth of pain, fear, despair, and loss mingling with the waning strands of hope and life that hobbled alongside them. It was all there, swirling in the air like curls of shredded ribbon, each scent of emotion a word in the all but invisible language of nature.

And nature was _screaming_.

The fragrance of the hills had changed overnight, growing rank and foul with the smell of rot and decay leaking down from every mountain and orchard it had once called home.

It didn't have the strength to scream, not as the rest of nature was. Briefly, it's leaves tried to remember what the sunlight felt like, traveling along the sensitive surfaces of it's skin. A last, bright flare of sunlight was all it was able to recall. With this last recollection of a dying light, the final living blossum in the lonely mountain orchard passed away. There was no great cries of mourning. Simply silence as the forests far and wide seemed to expel a quiet, reverent sigh of despair.

_All was lost…_

* * *

"Shino."

He could hear her, yes, and wanted to answer. His eyelids were heavy though, oh so heavy, and he knew he couldn't lift them without aid.

_Guys…little help…_The Aburame thought. He felt the figure next to him shift a little bit, as the soft little paddings of hundreads of tiny feet made their way across his arms and face to his eyes. Slowly, a sliver of light stabbed into the darkness of his vision, as his tiny friends aided him in the seemingly simpliest of actions.

"Oh you've got to be shitting me, are you really _that_ lazy?" Ino shouted in his face. Or maybe she'd only whispered. It was hard to tell with his hangover.

"Where were you! Some flea-bitten mongrel nearly took out our window last night trying to drag you in!"

_Akamaru…_The aburame thought…_no wonder she's so angry._ Ino hated dogs. Well, not exactly dogs so much as anything without a highly developed pre-frontal cortex. Which made him wonder…

"I should kill you, you know," Ino glared, "you're such a self-centered asshole sometimes!"

Shino closed his eyes again. He didn't need this. Not now. Not when his head was splitting, his gut was on fire, and he felt he'd misplaced some of his more spirited insect compatriots.

_They're gonna be so pissed when they wake up in the old man's box…_Shino pressed a hand to his aching forehead, trying to quell the pain that seemed to be driving itself into his skull like a hammer.

"Damn you," Ino grumbled, turning away form him. He thought he could hear her moving to the door, but at length she returned to the side of the bed. He could feel her irritation and worry radiating in waves, and for the first time since he'd woken up that morning he felt guilty for having caused it.

Something cool and damp was dabbed lightly across his aching forehead, causing Shino to open his eyes to see who it was. Ino sat there, looking back at him with hurt in her face as she ran the cloth over the parts of his head that she knew would hurt the most this morning. The occational shot of healing chakra could be felt as her fingers worked, and for that Shino was overwhelmingly grateful. She was so kind to him, despite what a mess he was and continued to be. He didn't deserve her.

"I'm sorry." Shino said simply, knowing that he should have said so much more, but unable to get his fuzzy thoughts to comply in time for a witty reply. Ino seemed to be crying as she gently tucked a pillow behind his head.

"You overdid it again." She stated simply, a slight tremor in her tone.

"Couldn't find you." Shino said hoarsely. He'd never say it, at least not in so many words, but he couldn't sleep without her lying beside him. The sound of her breathing, the little flutterings of soft words as she talked through her dreams, it calmed him, rooted him so completely in the moment that it almost felt as though the past year had never even happened. _Almost_.

"So I leave you alone for one night and you just decide to drink yourself to death?" Ino said shrilly. Shino shrugged.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh, I'll bet it did." She growled, pinching his toe a little too hard as she rounded the bed to the dresser.

"I dreamed of the moutain again…" Shino groaned softly. He'd told her about the dreams before, of the village and orchard he always seemed to imagine he was trapped in.

_The Village of The Black Blossom…_Shino clamped his eyes shut, wishing he had never heard the stories, that Kiba had never told him the horrifying rumors or grotesque gossip that now haunted his dreams. The dreams were always different some how, though they all seemed to take place within the confines of the mysterious village. Shino had never been there, but that didn't seem to matter to his subconcious. Sometimes he was part of the ruins, taking on the role of a support beam in one of the still standing doorways, a stone in the foundation or walls. On occasion he was a living thing, like a raven or crow pecking at the rot and moss on the roofs as he looked for bugs (highly disturbing on his end). Sometimes though, he was trapped in the form of something else, something animate but lacking in sentience…like the flower in the orchard.

"Really," Ino snickered, "and how is the village of the damned?"

"Still damned."

"Same then?"

"Pretty much." Shino blinked, trying to banish the strange shadow of foreboading that the dream had left him with. He watched as Ino opened the drawers in the dresser, shuffling his belongings around messily in one, only to let out an agitated sigh and close it as she moved on to another.

"What are you looking for?" Shino stretched, pushing himself up by his elbows. Ino immediately froze, letting out an awkward, high-pitched laugh.

"Looking for?" Ino nearly cackled, "why on Earth would you think I was _looking_ for something?"

"You, tearing apart my room without a single back-handed compliment about air born pathogens and their direct correlation to the sedimentary filth compounded by my natural state of existance." Shino spoke smoothly and calm, as though he had rehearsed this reply for hours instead of the seconds it took to compose. Ino scewed a disgusted scowl at Shino in response, her face blossuming into a rather fetching (and alarming) shade of deep scarlet. Now was probably _not_ the time to inquire as to whether one's significant other was armed (heavily, or otherwise).

"Shino Aburame, you did _not_ just quote our last argument _ver batem_." Ino cowed. Shino was actually beginning to wonder if he really had just gone there, and what the fuck he'd been thinking to do such a stupid thing. He believed the Nara would have dubbed it to be a 'serious tacticle error'.

_Situation normal…_Shino scowled_…all f'd up._

"You didn't answer my question." Shino noted blankly.

"Uh…" Ino's eyes seemed to cloud over a little as she tried to hide the sudden jittery darting of her gaze from one side of the room to the other.

_Looking for an exit…not good…_Shino sighed, laying back on the bed as he drew his eyes up to study the cracks in the ceiling. So it had come to this, huh? Ino coming over to his apartment to grab her stuff and break up with him?

"Actually…" Ino shifted. "you remember that thing we said we weren't going to talk about?"

"Which one?" Shino closed his eyes, trying to brace himself for the blow he knew was coming.

"The one involving pinky and the destruction of public property?" Ino fidgeted. Shino smirked with his eyes closed.

"Gonna have to be more specific…" He muttered. If he was going to get the boot, he might as well enjoy the show.

"The term 'alchohalic' may or may not have been presented at an inopportune time?" Ino's tone was delicate. Too delicate for a mere send off, or 'get the hell out'. What was she getting at?

"The last time somebody called me that, we…" Shino paused, his face caught in a silent _Oh_.

"Yeah," Ino went on rather bashfully, "about that." Shino grumbled. They'd had a fight that night, something he'd grown rather used too since the incident. Suddenly, Shino narrowed his gaze at Ino.

"You threw something at me," He said accusingly. Ino stared back at him blankly, her expression something akin to what Shino would describe as childlike confusion.

"Don't play innocent, Noh. You threw it at my head." Shino unconciously rubbed the back of his skull where the object had hit.

"What can I say, I have good aim," Ino shrugged, turning back to the dresser, "–do you pherhaps remember where I put it?"

Shino rolled his eyes.

"Depends on where I was standing when it hit me. It probably fell behind the shelf or under the bed, or something." Shino laid back down, throwing a tired arm over his eyes in an attempt to aleviate his hangover. Breifly, Shino heard the sound of wood scraping against wood.

_The shelf…_Shino thought decidedly. A moment of silence and huffing followed.

"Aha!" Ino returned triumphant to the side of the bed.

_Didn't even move the shelf back…_Shino grumbled to himself quietly as Ino held the offending object up into his face, much too close for Shino to make out it's exact form. Removing his arm from his eyes and pressing Ino's hands back far enough for him to focus, Shino could barely contain the groan growing in his throat.

"A book?" Shino looked at her pointedly. Ino smirked.

"Not just any book. This is my medical school graduate thesis." Ino began to happily flip through the well worn, dog-eared pages with great care and adoration. She seemed very proud of it. Shino wondered why he hadn't known that Ino even had a graduate thesis.

_Then again…_Shino let his eyes trail up and down Ino's lithe, curvacious form…_she __**is**__ a bit distracting._

"Alrighty then," Ino snapped the book shut, turning to Shino with a smile on her face. Shino looked back at her, confused.

"Ino?" Shino began, but failed to get any further as Ino leaned down and planted a deep, adoring kiss upon his chapped, pale lips. That shut him up.

"See you later, lover," Ino giggled, and with a flurry of blonde hair and blue eyes she was gone, leaving a whirlwind mess behind her, as always.

_Doomed…_Shino smirked_…you are a doomed man, Shino Aburame._ Not that he minded his fate, but doomed was doomed, no matter how you put it.

_But, oh, what a way to go…_Shino smiled as he drifted back to sleep.


	19. Chapter 19 : Smoke

Thank you so so much to everyone who reads and reviewed. Your feedback is the only thing that keeps me going. As previously announced, my goal is to have this story finished by the end of the year. We're almost there, guys! Thank you so much for sticking with me! ::hugs::

~Jen

* * *

Chapter 19 : Smoke

* * *

_Cigarettes…she smelled cigarettes…_

A sharp pain suddenly erupted from the middle of her forehead. Sakura opened her eyes with an almost petulant frown, rubbing the tender skin above her brow.

"Ow," she glared pointedly at her teacher. Ibiki merely smirked, returning his hand to the tableside.

"That's not what he's thinking." Ibiki snapped, sending an icy warning look to the analytical nin sitting across from his student at the interrogation table.

"Is there some hidden educational advantage to flicking her in the head, or is that just your own masochistic methodology?" The nin smirked lazily, slouching lower in his chair with a bored yawn. Ibiki snarled, glaring at his pupil to get her to continue. Sakura didn't need to be told twice.

The cigarette smoke was a sensory observation, not a mental one. Shikamaru had exploited the fact that he was a smoker, giving up easy memories of his last drag to distract her from dismantling his mental shields.

_Calculating little bastard…_Sakura frowned as she closed her eyes again.

Ibiki, seeing the determined look on his student's face, chuckled, "that's my girl." Shikamaru glanced up at the comment, confused.

_Feel the auras in the room…separate the chakra signatures…_Sakura went down the mental checklist Ibiki had drilled into her. Advanced Interrogation Techniques were worth their weight in gold for Anbu in Sakura's line of work. Information gathering was often half the battle, and being able to get past mental barriers were 90% of the process. This is why Ibiki had her practice on Intelligence Officers.

They were trained to make their minds endless mazes of walls, barriers, and mental dead ends. Sakura had almost got around the second of Ibiki's barriers last week, apparently signifying her need for higher level interrogation subjects. Poor Shikamaru just happened to be walking by their interrogation room on his way back from a tactical meeting when Ibiki forcefully enlisted him. Sakura was still having to make a serious effort to rid her mind of the laughable image of 'The Great Nara'–top level Intelligence Officer and tactical planner–being physically dragged into an interrogation room by his collar, grumbling.

"Mind if I nap? Or were you going to do something?" Lazy grin. Smartass. Sakura had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from flipping the table over and beating him with it.

Instead, Sakura slapped on that infamous smile she'd become known for, one full of violent promises and painful guarantees.

Across the table, she could hear the Nara audibly gulp.

"Good," Ibiki gruffed with a chuckle.

* * *

It wasn't until later the following month that Sakura saw her 'Interrogation Partner' again. He was at the bar, same as she was, looking tired and worn through in the busy throng of animated bar patrons each vying for their own particular poison. He slumped against the soft, dark wood of the counter there, sipping his drink at a lazy, but steady pace. It seemed as though his last mission had simply been too much for him.

_Hope I didn't break him…_Sakura hadn't been able to help but feel guilty for how the rest of the interrogation session had turned out the month prior. What with Shikamaru jumping up from the chair and tearing from the room not two minutes after alerting her and Ibiki to his apparent boredom.

But to Sakura, he had looked anything but merely 'bored' with the exercise. If she didn't know better she'd assume he'd been, almost…afraid? His eyes had been wide with surprise and a tint of embarrassment as he hurried out of the room like she'd just set the table on fire (not that the idea didn't cross her mind, once or twice).

It wasn't until later that Sakura realized she must have stumbled near a part she was never suppose to even know existed in the maze of hallways in the intelligence officer's mind.

She had _scared_ him. Somehow, by just being close to that thing, secret or otherwise, had been enough to triple his heart rate and send him silently screaming from the room.

Ibiki had been impressed, to say the very least.

Shikamaru had pushed this particular bit of information so far down into the recesses of his mind it was as though he were hiding it from not just the world, but himself. On _purpose_.

_What could possibly be that important? _From her place in a booth across the bar Sakura could follow the strong lines of Shikamaru's jaw with her eyes, watching the strong muscles of his neck flex and twist as he downed another shot wordlessly.

"See something you like?" Hinata nudged Sakura in the arm, merely earning her an annoyed look of reproach. Sakura wanted to stomp on Hina's foot in retaliation, but wisdom and past experience had taught her to never start a poking match with a Hyugaii.

"Who'iz Uno lookings at?!" Kiba slurred, already being ten shots in on their little drinking game and had called an evening effective 'time-out'. His head was presently resting on the table as Ino and Shino played footsie underneath (much to everyone's eternal disgust and irritation). Thus far, the 'I have never' saga Kiba had instigated had only managed to get him drunk, which Sakura supposed, _was_ the essential point. For Kiba, anyway.

Hinata's lavender eyes softened at Sakura's apparent reaction, a sliver of worry crossing her face for a second.

"Are you alright?" Hinata asked gently.

"As I'll ever be," Sakura gave her friend a knowing smirk. It was a little joke between them. Both of them really knew that 'alright' simply translated into 'F'd up beyond all possible reason', but it was so much more fun to say it as 'alright', 'fine', or 'okey dokey'.

"Okey Dokey," Hinata innocently followed Sakura's gaze to the bar, curious what she was looking at.

"Guess that means you don't believe me, huh?" Sakura snickered into her drink, stealing one last glance at the bar, and Shikamaru's sullen form before returning her attention to Hinata and the rest of their booth.

"Not as far as I can throw you my friend." Hinata smiled sweetly, her brow cocked in a teasing way, as though she'd discovered something she knew no one else would.

"That's not very far," Sakura laughed, the image of Hinata attempting to throw her becoming too much of an spectacle in her imagination for her to keep a straight face in reality.

"Sakura," Hinata said, her voice softer now. Sakura leaned closer, confused as to her friend's sudden solemness.

"Were you looking at…" Hinata glanced over her shoulder to make sure Kiba was passed out before she went on in a whisper, "–at Shikamaru Nara?"

Sakura could feel her face flush scarlet, and it surprised her to almost to the point of alarm. Was she actually _blushing?_

_Dear God in Heaven, woman, you're a ninja, get a grip…_ She told herself that it wasn't a crime to look at someone, let alone someone from the opposite sex. God knows she'd been celibate long enough to be allowed the occasional glance at a still living attractive male.

"Saku–" Hinata started, but Sakura cut her off abruptly.

"It doesn't mean anything, Hina." Sakura set her drink down carefully, "Ibiki had me practicing some advanced interrogation stuff on him last month, and I just wanted to make sure he was okay."

Hinata nodded appreciatively, though she seemed to be forming her own conclusions about Sakura's sudden compassionate streak without taking the actual explanation into consideration at all.

"Doesn't mean a thing, right," Hina snickered girlishly. Sakura sent her an annoyed glance.

"It doesn't, _Hina_." She said, sternly.

"Why are you saying it so _forcefully_?" Hinata chuckled, "sounds like your trying to convince somebody who doesn't believe you."

_Dammit…_Sakura rolled her eyes, covering her face with a hand. She'd walked right into that one. Stupid Hyugaii and their stupid diplomatic genius. The whole clan had the innate ability to talk you into an early grave, and actually have you thanking them for the suggestion by the end of it.

Hinata was laughing good-naturedly at her as Sakura continued to hide her face in embarrassment. Her being adamant about her lack of interest in the sullen Intelligence officer at the bar had done nothing more than convince Hinata of the opposite.

_Stupid friggin' reverse psychology…_She rubbed her eyes, feeling a sudden headache coming on.

"Sides, I don't think he'd mind it," Hinata mumbled to Sakura conspiratorially.

"What? Who?" Sakura asked dryly, not really paying attention.

"Nara-San, of course," Hinata replied, cheerily, "after all, _he_ looks at _you_ too."

"Now hang on just a damn minute, Hyugaii–" Sakura paused for a second before the words sunk in, "Wait, _what_?"

"You heard me, I'm not repeating it." Hinata drank a bit more of her soda before bouncing up and down happily in her seat. Sakura wanted to laugh at her antics, but she suddenly found herself unable to do much of anything but stare at the perfectly polite diplomatic manor of accusation her best friend had suddenly taken to. Slowly, Sakura narrowed her gaze on her friend.

"You're _evil_." She stated, which caused Hinata to simply shrug.

"Truth hurts," The other young woman retorted playfully.

_Ouch…_was all Sakura could think of at the moment, but not because she was hurt. Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that a familiar figure at the bar had turned his head towards the booth and was presently studying it's occupants. She tried not to think about all the places those eyes were traveling, but just thinking the thought had her blushing in her seat (a serious ninja desensitization fail). She could feel his stare like fingers tracing the lines and contours of her skin, stopping at each and every curve and crevice to explore and discover all that she hid from the world.

_Remember you're a ninja, remember you're a ninja…_She repeated over and over again in her mind.

It didn't work.

* * *

It was only a few months later that Shikamaru found himself once again staring, unconsciously, and openly, at Sakura Haruno, with no good excuse other than the fact that she was there and he didn't know how long before she disappeared again. This time, it wasn't in the bar, but the hospital, and he was hooked up to a morphine drip, not throwing back shots at the counter. She was…well, not as he remembered her. Then again, he figured all the tubes and machines might have something to do with that.

He stood there, before the observation window in the Quarantined section of the hospital, watching as the woman he'd always seen as indestructible fought the long and weary battle for her life. He clenched and unclenched his fingers in frustration as he looked at her unconscious and prone form laid slack upon the bed. Her dark flowered locks scattered about the pillow like ribbons as the sweat from the fever rained down upon her brow.

"Nara?"

He turned slightly, to see familiar white eyes and purple tresses looking at him in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" She lifted a hand as though to take him to task, but then faltered, "I thought Tsunade-sama put you on bed rest."

"Yeah." Shikamaru grunted, returning his eyes to the observation room.

"So?" Hinata was fishing for something, Shikamaru just didn't know _what_.

"So, I rested." Shikamaru said simply, almost sharply, trying to end the conversation.

"And now?" She inquired. Shikamaru's eyes fell upon Sakura's dry, parched lips, wishing one of the stupid medics would give her some damn water.

"Done resting." He almost growled. Beside him Hinata fell almost silent.

"I wanted to thank you–" She started carefully.

"–don't." He said firmly, which earned him an odd look of curiosity from the young Hyugaii heiress.

"You saved my best friend–"

"–She saved herself."

"–but you brought her back!" Hinata had raised her voice, almost to an audible level, in her frustration with the hard headed nin before her.

"You brought her back," Hinata went on, "you didn't have to, but you did."

_No, I had to…but not for you…_Shikamaru pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the thought. His mind was entering dangerous territory where Haruno was concerned, the present situation bearing witness to his own personal weaknesses. He knew he should have left her, that Ibiki probably would have ordered him to leave her there, feverish and alone in that dead place while he went back for help.

_She didn't have that kind of time…_His breathing hitched at the memory. Half of their team had been killed by whatever had happened in that cursed mountain village, and it seemed more than adamant on taking on a third.

_You won't get her too…_Shikamaru found himself gritting his teeth in an effort to quell his sudden anger. He knew he shouldn't have taken the mission. It was in the mountains, for fucks' sakes, days away from any help or aid, with only little miss Haruno to fight whatever minor medical issues they found.

And boy–did they find _issues_.

"How bad is it?" Hinata asked again, alerting Shikamaru to the fact that he hadn't been listening.

"How bad is what?" He asked, glancing slightly at the Hyugaii girl in confusion.

"Your punishment," Hinata repeated softly, "how bad?"

"What, that?" Shikamaru nearly had to laugh he was so relieved. Out of all the questions he'd been asked over the past few days, this one honestly seemed the easiest to answer.

"Demotion, wage garnishment, forced retirement from active duty…" Shikamaru listed off the blows one by one, acting as though each of them were no more than a slap on the wrist as far as he was concerned. Hinata, however, knew different.

"That's no small price," She gulped.

_It was no small prize…_Shikamaru thought as he looked through the window at the languishing kunoichi on the bed.

"I need you to promise me something, Shikamaru," Hinata said suddenly. Shikamaru turned his head slightly to face her, curious as to what the Hyugaii girl would deem so important as to ask him, of all people.

"Depends on what it is," Shikamaru smirked weakly, still not up to his regular smart-ass fighting form. The virus had taken it's toll on him, perhaps less so than the others, but just enough to make even the tiniest of movements seem like a marathon.

"If I can't, or Kiba and Shino aren't there. Will you please, watch out for Sakura?"

_Always…_His mind supplied all too quickly.

"I don't deal in what-if's Hyugaii-san," He replied coarsely, "I deal in facts, same as everybody else."

"Fine, then _if_ the time comes that she needs someone, and it just so happens there's nobody left…" Hinata's voice died down to almost a hush, "then–can I count on you?" Hinata was staring up at him, expectantly.

Waiting for an answer to such a heavily loaded question, Shikamaru almost had half a mind to keep her waiting.

Instead, he heard himself answering in a half-hearted sort of grumble, "She's _trouble_...I _hate_ trouble..."

But he loved _her_. He knew it, and he was still cursing himself for it. Somewhere along the lines, he had made a _serious_ tactical error.

Shikamaru doubted anyone would be able to read between the lines of his veiled reply, but his response none-the-less seemed to illicit an unexpected giggle of laughter from the Hyugaii heiress instead of the anticipated scorn he'd been awaiting.

He was perplexed, to say the least.

Were _all_ of Sakura's friends certifiably insane? Or was it just the girls?

Hinata, however, leaned in closer to him, beckoning Nara to bend his head, as though she were going to tell him a secret.

"You're a good man, Shikamaru Nara, whether you know it or not," She whispered.

"Well, then..._damnit_," He hissed.

He'd been found out. She knew what he'd meant, despite what he'd said. _Damn_ all Hyugaii's and their _damn_ diplomatic genius.

"You're an evil, _evil_, little, person." He told her, which just made her crack a smile. He couldn't help but be distracted by it, because it was almost the same way Sakura had a tendency to smile when she was really excited about something.

"Truth hurts, Nara. Better get used to it." She told him simply, in reply.

If he'd known that would be the last time he'd ever see Hinata's nosy little face, he would have made more of an effort to be anything but curt and grumpy with her. But he hadn't known, because no one ever does, even if they see the signs spelled out in front of them clear as daylight. It wasn't until several months later, after he'd lost his lunch (twice), and had to pry an inconsolable Sakura from the dead body of her former friend, that it truly hit him.

The truth _did_ hurt. More than he could ever imagine. But knowing it was the only way to counter the shock of seeing one's worst possible nightmares come to actual, terrible, physical fruition. There was death all around them, an undeniable truth these days, but there was also something else. Something he couldn't quite put a name to, or describe in any precise or particular way, but it was _something_. And he saw it every time he looked in Haruno's eyes, whether they were streaked in tears, blood shot, or glaring at him–that _something_ was there _en masse_. And he loved her all the more for it.

* * *

When Shikamaru opened his eyes he was greeted with a splitting headache the likes of which Shino had probably never even seen. His eyesight was blurry, and he couldn't quite get a handle on which way was up or down, even though he appeared to be on a sort of hard packed dirt-floor. He could feel the dried blood crusted on his jaw, and knew that someone or thing had blown out one of his ear drums, which accounted for the dizzy disorientation and ringing in his ears.

_There goes my natural grace…_He took a deep, slow breath, trying to count how many sharp jabs of pain, and which of them actually originated from a broken bone or serious injury.

_Seven._ He counted four broken bones, two of which were ribs and would probably heal fine on their own. He'd definitely cracked his hip bone, and it hurt like hell, but wouldn't need to be set. The other aches and pains (three) were mainly superficial, but looked like they'd gushed like hell. To anyone who didn't know him, he probably looked like he was going to bleed out.

_Explains the lack of security…_Shikamaru noted he'd been put in no restraints of any kind, nor had a guard been stationed outside of the small cramped, underground cell. He almost wanted to laugh. It was too easy. Clearly, whoever had him didn't know who he was, or else they wouldn't have put him in a dungeon with so many large and imposing shadows at his disposal. His hands, after all, were in _perfect_ working order.

His hosts, it seemed, were in a for quite a nasty little surprise.


End file.
